A friend bought a Geo Prizm. She loved it and drove it for years until it got to the point where her mechanic said “buy a new car”.
Mom had a 1990 Geo Tracker (hardtop). It was a fine little car; the only significant issue I remember with it was some small animal getting stuck somewhere in the A/C system that caused an unholy stench. The dealership was able to remove it, and was thoughtful enough (???) to leave the desiccated remains on the dashboard for us to examine. She sold it around '97 or '98 to someone in need of a cheap, reliable car; we saw it around town for many years after that.
I test drove a Geo Storm back in the early ‘90s and it was the most gutless thing I’ve ever driven. And, at the time, most of the cars I had owned were decades-old VW Beetles.
I had a Geo Metro and it was a fine little car. I drove the heck out of it, then sold it to my nephew’s friend, who drove it another 100K miles. It got me where I was going as fast as the law allows.
StG
Geo had a shockingly good lineup for its day. It was like a greatest hits of small cheap cars: The most dependable small cheap car, the most frugal car in the country (all things considered), a cheap and cheerful 4wd that was more dependable and economical than any jeep while offering most of the off-road prowess, and the Geo Storm. Okay, that one was a poor copy of the far better Isuzu Impulse (which had better engines and a Lotus-tuned suspension) but at least the Storm looked nice and offered that neat hatchback.
My sister-in-law bought a Storm and kept it for many years with just routine maintenance. My friend had an old second-hand Prizm for about a decade that just never broke down despite all the thrashing. GM didn’t particularly know how to build a small car well but they could at least spot a decent small car on the market.
Yeah, when someone asks me my opinion of a meal, I always ask them, “which bite?” And then I quibble if they pick one where the peas were touching the carrots. “Which part do you mean?”
And the Metro was a Suzuki. The Prizm was a rebadged Corolla.
Wow, Geo Storm brings back memories.
I was this close to buying one. I went to the dealer with my own loan charts, knowing exactly what I could afford, and how much I was willing to pay. The dealer got nervous when he found out I was “smart” enough to generate my own charts. We went back and forth and settled on a price. Then as he was drawing up papers he tries to change to deal by telling me this is the “best lease deal” I’ll ever get. Lease? No, no, no. I am buying. Oh well that’s different he says and we’ll have to start all over. I got up and told him to no effing way. That was a Thurday evening. Saturday morning at 7:00am I get a phone call. I get scared thinking it must be a family emergency. It’s the dealer. He asks me if I’ve reconsidered the lease offer. You can imagine the string of curses that came out of my mouth that morning. Needless to say I never bought a Geo.
I had the 4 door “sedan” style Geo Metro and it was solid, I sold it at 365,000 kms with no real issues, except that it was too small. It was a well built little car.
The idea, as I recall, was that by partnering with Toyota (NUMMI), both companies would profit. Toyota could gain insights into the US market, and GM could learn how they produce cars so well. There was some PR (American jobs instead of Japanese-built) but Americans couldn’t adapt Japanese methods to their assembly lines. This film possibly exaggerated that but…
And not entirely rebadged. There were parts on mine (a Chevy, not yet Geo) that clearly said “TOYOTA” on them.
I don’t think it was mentioned upthread, but the Chevy LUV truck was a rebadged Isuzu. And remember the Chrysler products that were actually Mitsubishis?
My first vehicle was a metallic blue 1976 Luv! Was fine until I wrecked it driving like an idiot in high school.
Because you talk about changing the transmission fluid, I’m assuming you had an automatic. The Metro I had and loved was a manual. I can’t imagine that car being an automatic. I’m sure it would be underpowered, and that if you didn’t deliberately choose to downshift it under load (including uphill), it might even die on you a lot. My manual Metro handled like a dream, though.
Mine was the 4-door also. Was yours a manual?
Yes, mine was a manual too.
My brother had one in the 90s. It was small, but he could easily fit himself and 3 passengers in it for trips. Back then gas was $1 a gallon and he could do extensive weekend trips for $10 in gas.
Did they take them off the market due to safety concerns? As far as speed, it used to handle interstate speeds, but then one of the cylinders broke after about 10 years and it was operating on 2 cylinders instead of 3. After that point it couldn’t get to 70 mph. It would still reach highway speeds but it would take almost a minute to go from 0 to 55 mph.
I had a Toyota Tercel at one point. I bought it brand new and it lasted a long time, but was very generic (no arm rests on the doors, for example). I used to tell people it went from zero to sixty.
My father who passed in 1996 at the age of 60 last car was a 1993 3-door Geo Metro hatchback. It was actually the only car he ever owned that he bought NEW off a dealer’s lot(my sister helped him finance it.) He liked it a lot.
His impression might have been skewed though because the previous cars he owned were all used cars 10 plus years old. Through our childhood we would go through a different car every 2 to 3 years(until they became un-affordable to repair). They were mostly POS’s. (Living in poverty sucks.)
And I remember how the badge actually said “Imported for Dodge”, at least for some model years. I always assumed that was meant to appeal to people who swore they’d never buy an American car.
There were also Fords that were actually Mazdas.
I had a Geo Prizm – first new car I bought. Had some alternator issues but I don’t remember any other problems. I remember the official color “Crimson Cloak Mica” (dark red).
Brian
There are quite a few examples of badge engineering.
I tihnk there’s a difference in type, though.
In cases of auto makers who own multiple lines of makes, it’s completely standard for the same vehicle, more or less, to be released under each name. So you would routinely see the same model issued as a Chevy, Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac, or as a Ford and Mercury. Even the higher end vehicles were frequently largely based on the lower end nameplates produced by the same manufacturor, e.g. Toyota/Lexus, Honda/Acura, Nissan/Infiniti.
The Geo line was unusual in that GM did not own Toyota, Suzuki et al, and making the rebadged vehicles was a joint venture between GM and the other companies rather than the same company putting out essentially the same product under two or more of their own makes.
You are absolutely correct. It was an automatic, and I often did downshift to L for hills, and even then I still often needed some momentum to make it. That 3 cylinder engine was very underpowered, even for a vehicle that small. (And again, I can’t rule out the possibility that poor performance was due at least in part to poor maintenance.)