More Hi-Style Hillman Minx pics courtesy of Isuzu. I read an article in one of those Popular Classic magazines about the two young British Rootes engineers who were sent out to Japan in the early '50s to help Isuzu set up Minx production. They spent a year there, returning much healthier than they had left, because Britain was still on rationing and the Japanese DO eat well. They tried to explain to their bosses at Rootes about all the improvements to the product and the way they were produced in Japan. This was met with a wall of total disinterest and indifference, as if the "Japanese have nothing to teach us." Much the same with Austin and Nissan apparently. Before the Bellett was announced in 1963, Isuzu came up with the Bellel in 1961, a slightly bigger car which came with an optional Diesel engine, Japan's first in a passenger car.