PickupTrucks.com reports that Mazda officials have confirmed the B-series model has been dropped from the company’s American lineup. Sales for the aging model have been slow in recent years. In 2008, only 1319 examples were sold, a far cry from the 41,620 trucks Mazda moved out the door a decade earlier. Through August of 2009, Mazda sold only 532 B-series trucks, which represents approximately a 46-percent drop from 2008.
Although Mazda first brought the B-series range to the United States in 1972, the truck has been little more than a badge-engineered Ford Ranger since 1994. Mazda chose this path to help avoid a 25-percent tax on imported pickup trucks. The Ranger, which also has seen little significant change in the past decade, is expected to live on through 2011.