1995 Isuzu Trooper Se on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Florida man found dead inside SUV covered in parking tickets

A woman in Fort Lauderdale, FL, got a nasty shock last month when she discovered a corpse sitting at the wheel of a heavily ticketed SUV parked near the Broward County Courthouse. According to the Sun Sentinel, Carolyn White was walking down a street in Fort Lauderdale when she spotted something strange. An Isuzu Axiom with deeply tinted windows was parked at the curb festooned with parking tickets. Curious to find out how someone could get that many parking tickets, she went to investigate. "I was being nosy," she told the Sentinel. "I never let the meter man catch me. I never got a parking ticket and I wanted to know why somebody else got caught. And that's what made me look inside." When she approached the vehicle, she discovered more than just a pile of tickets under the wipers. An elderly man was sitting in the driver's seat, slumped face down over the center console between the seats, clutching a credit card in a still hand. "Oh my God, please tell me this man is not dead," was White's first thought, she told the paper. Unfortunately, he was. The Broward County Medical Examiner stated the man in the SUV, Jacob Morpeau of Miami, had been dead for quite some time when White discovered him. Records show that the Isuzu was ticketed in that space numerous times between November 12 and November 15, including twice in the space of three minutes the morning Morpeau's body was discovered. "I can understand why the meter person probably didn't see him from the driver's side," said White. "He was underneath the steering wheel, his head was in the middle of the seat, between the two seats. But you could see him on the passenger's side. That's how I seen him, from the sidewalk." Fort Lauderdale city officials declined to comment on the incident, but an email from the City Clerk's office stated that the $160 dollars racked up while Morpeau sat dead at the wheel of his SUV would be dismissed due to "extenuating circumstances". News Source: Sun Sentinel Auto News Weird Car News Isuzu SUV parking ticket Florida Man

Junkyard Gem: 1992 Geo Storm

GM's Geo brand existed from the 1989 through 1997 model years. While mostly remembered today for the Suzuki Cultus-based Metro (which continued to be sold with Chevrolet badging until 2001), there were also Geo Prizms (California-built Toyota Corollas), Geo Spectrums (Isuzu I-Mark), Geo Trackers (Suzuki Sidekick), and Geo Storms (Isuzu Impulse). Storms are very rare now, but I found this one in Colorado last week. The idea of the Geo brand was that it would lure young car buyers in a way that wouldn't be possible with stodgy brands such as Oldsmobile or Buick. While GM never sold as many Geos as hoped, enough hit American roads that they were pretty numerous for a while. 1980s-style pink-and-blue graphics remained relevant into the early 1990s. I'm not sure if these pink decal stripes were done at the factory, at a dealership, or later on in someone's back yard. The Storm GSi was the factory-hot-rod version, but this is an ordinary Storm with the 95-horsepower, 12-valve engine. Automatic transmission, of course. It never made it to 100,000 miles. The car seems to be in good shape, so perhaps something broke at about age 10 and it sat in a garage for the next 15 years. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. This ad, like the Storm, was very much of its time. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. GM emphasized the Japanese origins of the Storm. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. In Japan, this car was sold as the Yanase-Isuzu PA Nero, a catchy name for a "Nice Day Fair." Featured Gallery Junked 1992 Geo Storm View 16 Photos Auto News Isuzu

Cars with the most reckless drivers are full of surprises

Insurify is a site for comparing auto insurance quotes. Because insurance shoppers need to submit information like the vehicles they're driving and the infractions they've compiled while driving those vehicles, Insurify has quite the database of correlations tying certain models to a habit of breaking certain laws. When the site's data analysts decided to compile a list of the top ten models for reckless driving citations in the decade from 2010 to 2019, the ranking contained a few wild entries. The Dodge Challenger making the countdown will surprise precisely zero people. But the Saturn L200? First, a definition: USLegal.com defines reckless driving as "driving with a willful or wanton disregard for safety. It is the operation of an automobile under such circumstances and in such a manner as to show a willful or reckless disregard of consequences." So this list is a caution about particular drivers more than the cars. For a baseline, according to Insurify data, for any random model, 15 out of 10,000 people who drive that model have picked up one citation for reckless driving. Back to that Challenger, then. No shocker for being here, but it's actually number 10, with 44 out of 10,000 Challenger drivers nabbed for a willful disregard of consequences on the road. That's better than the first surprise entry, the Saturn L200, a sedan only on sale for six years, with the least horsepower on the list, and out of production since 2005. The data set put drivers of GM's extraterrestrial sedan at 45 reckless pilots per 10,000 drivers. There are two pickups on the list, the only modern one being the Ram 1500 at eighth, with a rate of 46 in 10,000. Somehow, drivers of the third-best-selling pickup in the U.S. outrun the overwhelming numerical superiority of the best-selling vehicle in the States, the Ford F-150. The other pickup is the Chevrolet K1500 at number five, with a rate of 56 in 10,000. This is not only the oldest vehicle on the list, it went out of production in 2002, before any other vehicle on the list. Between the trucks, the Volkswagen CC slotted in at seven with 47 in 10,000 reckless driving chits, the Cadillac ATS slipped into sixth with 48 in 10,000.  The top four is a bag of unexpected. The Nissan 370Z is the first hardcore sports car on the list at number four, with 61 in 10,000 Z drivers flaunting their Fairladys in the face of Johnny Law.