I was kinda thinking about replacing my 94 tbird daily driver with something smaller, we currently have a 94 Tbird, a 2002 crew cab F250 power stroke and my current project truck an 84 F150 300ci 4X4. Well I was thinking a used small pickup with a diesel would be fun and economical to play with and I discovered that VW is the only one importing diesels right now. Everyone else has stopped importing small diesels including mercedes until the low sulfur fuels come out. I guess after reading about it for awhile the EPA tightened up the standards for small vehicles but is lagging on reducing diesel sulfur content. meanwhile the Japanese and europeans are building diesels and they could be imported if US fuel was low sulfur. Ford builds a number of diesels including the ranger/mazda and nearly half of their cars in europe are now diesel. And from what I've read the main thing blocking american manufactures from making any small diesels right now including the navistar-ford V6 is the problem of passing emissions with high sulfur fuel.
So it would appear that if I want a little diesel pu to futz with I've got limited choices, all older, isuzu, mazda/ranger, dodge D50(isuzu),toyota and a couple of other odds and ends.

 

look at the older Dodge Ram 50's I think. They are little mini trucks like the Ranger, Courior, Chevy Luv, Ect.

If I remember correctly they were deisel engines. If you don't mind running around in a older vehicle.

 

I dont know if there are any still alive, but in the mid 80's Ford made diesel Rangers.
My brother drove the heck out of a Nissan diesel pu at work for a few years. It had about 250k on it when they got rid of it and apparently it had never been worked on.
It sucked to drive though.....no power, noisey, shakey, stinky.

 

The only problem with an older diesel compact pickup is that they would probably be pretty hard to find. A neighbor of mine has a couple of old Mazda (I think) diesel pickups. One still runs and he drives it quite a bit. The Ram 50, as well as the Ranger, Chevy Luv, and Toyota pickups all had an available diesel around the 80s era. I saw a diesel Isuzu pickup at a farm sale bill one time and I should have went and saw how it sold.