1998 Isuzu Amigo S Sport Soft Top 2-door Blue on 2040-cars

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Junkyard Gem: 1996 Isuzu Trooper

Though Americans had been buying the Isuzu-built Chevrolet LUV pickup since the 1972 model year (plus plenty of Isuzu-derived Chevettes and Chevette components later on), the first widely available Isuzu-badged vehicle available here was the LUV-sibling P'Up. That was the 1981 model year, and the I-Mark (Gemini) and Impulse (Piazza) soon followed. Later in the 1980s, GM (which owned a hefty chunk of Isuzu by that time) began selling Isuzu-built Spectrums and Storms with Chevrolet and/or Geo badges… but Isuzu started its United States business by selling trucks, and that's the only type of Isuzu you could buy new here when the company departed our shores in 2009. The Trooper SUV first went on sale here for the 1984 model year, and eventually the Trooper became the biggest-selling Isuzu in North America. Here's an example from the sales heyday of the middle 1990s, found in a Colorado self-service yard. In its homeland, this truck was known as the Bighorn. Elsewhere around the globe, however, it went by far too many names to list here (though Trooper was the most common). Highlights include the Holden Jackaroo and Caribe 442. Honda's desperation to cash in on the 1990s North American SUV craze led to the creation of an Acura-badged Trooper, known as the SLX and sold here from the 1996 through 1999 model years. As part of this arrangement between Isuzu, GM, and Honda, the Isuzu Rodeo became the Honda Passport here (confusing every North American who had ever bought a Passport-badged Honda Super Cub, which got that name so as not to run afoul of the builders of the Piper Super Cub aircraft) and Isuzu dealers sold Honda Odysseys with Oasis badges. Once we'd gotten a few years into our current century, the only Isuzu-badged vehicles you could buy new here (not counting commercial trucks) weren't even built by Isuzu at that point. One was the Ascender (a badge-engineered Chevy Trailblazer) and the other was the i-Series pickup (a badge-engineered Chevy Colorado). Oh, sure, a handful of Axioms and Rodeos slunk out of American Isuzu showrooms in the early years of the 2000s, but the clock really started ticking for Isuzu USA when the final Troopers showed up for 2002. When this truck was built, Isuzu was engaged in an eye-gouging, kidney-spearing price- and financing-deal war with Mitsubishi Motors and its Montero.

GM recalling 8.4M cars, 8.2M related to ignition problems

General Motors today announced a truly massive recall covering some 8.4 million vehicles in North America. Most significantly, 8.2 million examples of the affected vehicles are being called back due to "unintended ignition key rotation," though GM spokesperson Alan Adler tells Autoblog that this issue is not like the infamous Chevy Cobalt ignition switch fiasco.
For the sake of perspective, translated to US population, this total recall figure would equal a car for each resident of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, the District of Columbia, Vermont and Wyoming. Combined. Here's how it all breaks down:
7,610,862 vehicles in North America being recalled for unintended ignition key rotation. 6,805,679 are in the United States.

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