Here's how Geo became the only GM brand that had no GM cars

In 1989, General Motors introduced a new

brand

called Geo, made up entirely of small

cars

, and GM never built them to compete with other affordable Japanese

cars

. GM joined Toyota Suzuki and Isuzu in importing their cars to North America and marketed them under the Geo name. the name geo but the

brand

only

lasted nine model years and most models were later rebadged as chevrolet and the brand was quickly forgotten this is a story of a GM brand known as geo this is my old car it is sold in service in Your Chevrolet Geo dealership Two years before the addition of the Geo brand Arguably GM's most famous subcompact car, the Chevette ended its 10-year run The demise of the Chevette was actually the work of GM introducing additional subcompact imports in 1985, such as the Chevrolet Sprint built by Suzuki and the Chevrolet Sprint built by Isuzu.

Chevrolet Spectrum and Toyota build the Chevrolet Nova, the ladder doesn't look like the original Nova and if you're Canadian you might remember the Pontiac Firefly which was a rebadged Chevy Sprint. These cars sold well enough to make the Chevrolet obsolete. The Chevrolet brand represented. almost all types of vehicles, not

only

subcompacts, but also medium and large sedans, trucks, SUVs and sports cars, in that sense, Chevy today has not changed much, but at that time GM wanted to strategically market its subcompact segment among young people. new car buyers, so some marketing genius thought that giving those cars a different brand would help attract younger buyers, although GM didn't really differentiate them by giving them their own dealerships, instead Geos were only sold along with the Chevrolets, although t

here

were five different models.

Marketed as the Geos during the brand's run, more than four models never existed at any one time. At the launch of the Geo in 1989, t

here

were four models available. The Metro, which replaced the Chevy Sprint. The Prisma written with a Z, which replaced the Chevy Nova. tracker which was based on the suzuki sidekick and the spectrum which was just a continuation of the chevy spectrum, however the geographic spectrum only lasted the 1989 model year and was replaced in 1990 by the geostorm which was based on the boost of isuzu of all geographical models. Metro is possibly the most famous or most appropriately infamous.

Yes, the Chevrolet was cheap, but the Metro took that notion to a whole new level, but since it was a Japanese car, NGM made it clear in its advertising that it was an import, its Japanese construction was agile and fast. Low priced and the car with the highest mileage in the United States. I guess the idea was that Americans would think it would be a better, more reliable car in the '80s. Unfortunately, it was common for anything made in Japan to be considered better. No wonder this failed circuit says made in Japan what do you mean doc? all the best is made in japan amazing the metro name was not completely new in 1989 as it was used on the non-turbo version of the chevrolet sprint in 1987 called sprint metro the 1989 Geo Metro was essentially the same car that the Suzuki cultists sold in Japan and the rebadged Pontiac Firefly sold in Canada.

Suzuki also sold the same car under its own name, then known as the Swift, although it was initially built in Japan in 1989, in 1990 GM built all the North American sold Metros and Three Bad Brothers at a plant in Ontario a joint venture with Suzuki Suzuki in partnership with general motors to invest $500 million in city of ingersoll in southwestern ontario engine options in the metro showed no improvement in what the chevrolet had in horsepower, but mileage improved by more than 50 miles per gallon. It achieved this improvement thanks to only three cylinders being offered in one-liter and 1.3-liter variants ranging from 55 to 70 horsepower.

Note that the car weighed less than 1 ton. or only about 1800 pounds, that should have helped the acceleration from 0 to 60, the time was almost 15 seconds and the top speed was 99 miles per hour. Can you imagine driving this little car at that speed? No, the first generation Metros initially only offered three or five-door hatchbacks, but starting in 1990 you could also buy a convertible Metro which eliminated any functionality the car once had by eliminating the back seat for somewhere to store. the soft top; The loss of the back seat meant that the convertible was actually a good 50 pounds lighter than the three-door, so they clearly didn't add much if any structural reinforcement to account for the missing roof.

This rag roof existed only for people who wanted to have a rag roof at the cheapest price, but eventually the lack of demand put an end to it. convertible in 1993. The second-generation Metro began in 1995 with a four-door sedan model that replaced the five-door hatchback. Anti-lock brakes

became

an option. Dual front airbags were standard and chassis upgrades improved rigidity and safety. The subway continued forward beyond the end. of the geo brand in 1997 and continued as the chevy metro until the 2001 model year, it was replaced by the chevy avio in 2002 built in korea by a company called daewoo that had gone bankrupt and was acquired by general motors in retrospect it was not one of jm The brightest ideas, but that's a completely different story.

The next car in the Geo line, the Prism, was derived from a variation of the Toyota Corolla and replaced the Chevy Nova, slightly larger than the Metro. Initial versions in 1989 offered five- and four-door hatchbacks. Sedans Sedans proved to be more popular, resulting in the hatchback only being sold until the end of the first generation of the Prism in 1991. Back then, a hatchback was generally considered a lesser alternative to a sedan despite being more practical so the prisma sedan was considered more exclusive for the metro as if it were possible to be less exclusive the power of the prisma engine was huge compared to the metro which offered a 1.4 liter four cylinder engine that generated 130 horsepower in GSI version for the second generation from 1992, the engine power increased to 1.8 liters and even leather seats were an option.

GM continued to sell the Prism as Chevrolet after the demise of the Geo brand in 1997 and the Prism was sold until 2003 where it was replaced by the Toyota Build Pontiac Vibe, which also began with the Geo's 1989 launch was the Geo Tracker, a small SUV that was almost an identical twin to the Suzuki stablemate it was built with in Ontario. The Tracker was body-on-frame, allowing it to be classified as a light truck. It could also have an option with four-wheel drive. It offered a transfer case to allow low gears with two- or four-wheel drive and had a convertible option, making it a direct competitor to the Jeep Wrangler powered by a 2.6-liter Suzuki 4-cylinder.

It wasn't fast and made only 80 horsepower, but its suspension was off-road. made clear what its purpose was: the tracker only had one generation during its entire career under the geo brand, sold as a two-door convertible or hardtop, although the tracker was a companion rebadged geo and then the nameplate chevy helped break it up. From Suzuki that some consumers may have associated with its most infamous model, the Samurai, the Samurai was a smaller compact SUV that was criticized by the media due to footage recorded of the car nearly flipping over during high-speed lane changes in the magazine. , consumer reports, the Companion and the Trackers were of a different design so did not carry the same risk, but Suzuki's overall reputation was tarnished as a result of which it exited the North American market and filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

In 1998, the now Chevrolet-branded tracker began its second generation. A suzuki vatara re-bad unlike the companion, this second generation tracker was more rounded and had a more car-like shape and reverted to a car-based rack and pinion steering instead of its truck design more focused on all terrain. had previously made second generation trackers less desirable for off-road use, however this did not stop Suzuki from continuing to produce the base Photara tracker in Mexico and Central and South America, keeping the Batara name there, although in some cases they were identified as Chevrolet. avatars the last model under the name geo was one of my favorites at the time of geostorm, but it was also the shortest release in 1990, a year after the start of geobrand and replacing geospectrum, the storm was based on momentum from isuzu, although an isuzu version of the Storm was sold in Japan known as the Gemini Coupé, the North American Storm, and the Impulse Black.

Gemini's optional turbocharged all-wheel drive and lotus-design suspension. The Impulso dates back to 1980 in the US market, when it was called Piazza. Ridden on a modified version of GM's T platform, the same one used for the Chevy Chevette, renamed the Impulse in 1983. The first generation was nothing like the Giveth and lasted until 1990, when it was redesigned to share the platform with the Geostorm, the Storm quickly proved to be much more popular than the Boost likely due to the much larger GM Back Geo network sold at Chevy dealerships with 1.6-liter four-cylinder engines generating 130 horsepower, The Storm was initially only sold as a liftback or haze coupe as they were called then although in 1991-92 they also offered a different hatchback model which was known as a station wagon when the coupe was much more popular making the station wagon a find.

Rare today, although still an affordable subcompact, the Storm was relatively well received when tested by automotive publications such as Autoweek and Road and Track. Even compared to cars like the Mazda RX-7, the upgraded GSI trim still offered more power with a 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine that produced 149 horsepower. A unique feature of the geostorm was what made it one of my favorites. Partially Hidden Headlights I once owned a 1990 Pontiac Sunbird with a variation of the same look, but just like the Pontiac and probably due to cost concerns, the headlight doors didn't last. In 1992 and 93 storms they lost the lighthouse doors and instead had small quad headlights.

Look, GM also used it in the same year at the Pontiac Grand Prix despite selling well in the US and also Canada starting in 1992. The fact that the Storm was built by Isuzu is what led to to its short model of only four years. It was doing so poorly that Isuzu discontinued it in 1993 and as a result they stopped building the Storm as well. It's hard to say exactly why GM abandoned the Geo line after just nine years, although the Geo brand never had its own dealerships, but was instead sold alongside Chevy. The added overhead of maintaining a separate brand probably wasn't worth it for cars that weren't much different than they once were as Chevy models, so the Geo brand quietly closed in 1997.

Like many other cars of that At that time, Geos were consumables. Any working version is a rare find these days, but it was the first new car for many, so I hope many still have fond memories of these little Japanese imports. Thanks for watching, if you liked this episode, please click the like button and subscribe to my channel if you want. have a car from the 80's to mid 2000's that you rarely see today and would like to see featured in a future episode, leave a comment or contact me at the email address shown here until next time I guess I won't dresses.