Junkyard Find: 1980 Mazda B2000 Sundowner Pickup

by Murilee Martin

July 27th, 2013 12:18 AM

junkyard find 1980 mazda b2000 sundowner pickup

Back in the Middle Malaise Era, most of the B-series Mazda pickups you saw in North America were badged as Ford Couriers, and of course we’ve found the occasional junkyard-dwelling Courier. Still, some Mazda-badged pickups were released into the wild, and the longbed version was known as the Sundowner. Here’s a very-much-of-its-time Sundowner in yellow with beige-and-brown tape stripes and red-and-brown rust, spotted at a Colorado self-serve yard earlier this week.

Sakes alive, that’s a cheap pickup!

This one appears to have spent at least some part of its life in the Midwest, or maybe it just sat with a bed full of melting snow for a couple dozen Colorado winters.

The interior isn’t so bad, but the 5-digit odometer can’t tell us whether it’s an 84,942-mile truck or a 484,942-mile truck.

Just 77 horsepower from the 1,970cc SOHC F engine.

These trucks didn’t have quite the rep for reliability earned by their Toyota Hilux competitors, but they were pretty solid machines for their era.

The 26-year-old Colorado State Parks pass is a nice vintage touch.

Tip: if you’re swapping build tags, use rivets instead of screws. Oh, and mount the tag right-side-up.

#1980 #1980MazdaB2000 #1980MazdaPickup #1980s #Camper #DownOnTheJunkyard #FordCourier #Junkyard #JunkyardFind #Malaise #Mazda #MalaiseEra #MazdaPickup #MazdaB2000

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Dogfather on Apr 14, 2016

My find, Mesa Arizona. https://www.facebook.com/projecthollywoodalley/

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Pishta on Mar 28, 2023

Those 80 B2000's were very Ford Courier like but the 81's had a completely new for Mazda dash. Less pods, more integration in one window. These didn't get the F motor until 84(?) only with the B2200 option. Single wall beds had lost of rust through issues. The 80 Quad headlamp grill was very rare, I dont rememeer seeing but one growing up.

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