Junkyard Gem: 1995 Geo Tracker
The Geo brand was GM's way of selling rebadged budget machinery produced via arrangements with Toyota, Suzuki, and Isuzu. There was the Prizm (Toyota Corolla), the Metro (Suzuki Cultus), the Spectrum (Isuzu I-Mark), the Storm (Isuzu Impulse), and the Tracker (Suzuki Sidekick). Here's a rare example of the last type, in its final parking spot in a Denver self-serve yard.
This one has a 5-speed manual transmission and an 80-horsepower Suzuki 1.6 four-cylinder engine.
Trackers were sold as fun outdoorsy trucks, for camping or whatever, but mostly they ended up trudging back and forth to work on suburban commutes. This one just squeezed past the 200,000-mile mark during its 22-year lifetime.
It has a Budget rental-car sales sticker on it, but I am skeptical that Budget rented any vehicles with manual transmissions in the American market as late as 1995.
The interior is done up in that distinctive 1990s industro-cloth, with a Solo Jazz Cup-influenced pattern.
Air conditioning. Such luxury!
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Apparently, Geo was a sponsor of the first season of The Real World. Here are Heather Gardner and Norman Korpi explaining why they like the Tracker (you can take the top off and pump your music, and it's almost as cheap as a motorcycle).
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Junkyard Gem: 1995 Geo Tracker originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 03 Mar 2018 15:15:00 EST.
