Of all the midsize pickups available in the market right now, one could argue that the BT-50 is the least utilitarian-looking of them all. Perhaps that’s partly because of Mazda’s positioning as a more premium Japanese brand.
But what if we told you there was an actual workhorse version of this available in Australia? Not the classy, lifestyle vehicle-looking pickup that we know, but a ready-to-do-some-heavy-lifting type of truck.
Down Under, the BT-50 can be had as a cab-and-chassis, in either dual-cab or single-cab form. These variants aren’t exactly new, but they did get a recent important update: They finally got the new 2.2-liter turbodiesel, the same new powertrain in the Isuzu D-Max. This puts out 161hp and 400Nm of torque and can be now be had with both 4x2 and 4x4 drivetrains, depending on the cab configuration.
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As the photos suggest, select variants are available with dropside beds as standard, complete with Mazda and BT-50 branding, too. That’s something we don’t ever see here in the Philippines, and we reckon it might actually work here. We know Aussies love their utes, but we Filipinos like our pickup trucks, too. Imagine the possibilities of a cab-and-chassis BT-50—we could do all sorts of things with those trucks.
Now, despite being workhorses, these BT-50s still come with decent interiors. They don’t get all the bells and whistles, but the cabin still has the basics like the digital instrument cluster and the touchscreen head unit. In the higher workhorse variants, it even comes with adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go function as well as wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
What do you guys think? Will a pickup like this, er, work here on our side of the globe?
