(First Published 5/26/2013) At this point my car history so far may appear somewhat schizophrenic, so to continue the lack of any discernible pattern, I made as complete a change of direction from my previous car as possible…
Behold the 1986 Isuzu I-Mark! She jumped out at me from the corner of a small used car lot in San Luis Obispo as I was just about to start my fourth year of college. I took a test drive, liked it, couldn’t find any faults except for the mysterious disappearance of the grille logo, and closed the deal. While looking for pictures of this car, I found the bill of sale: I paid $3,366.50 for this car with 82,298 miles on it, in August of 1990.
Some of you may have never seen one of these (or forgotten them); they were relatively rare in some parts of the county, however the shape may be familiar as it was also sold as the Geo/Chevy Spectrum for a few years with a somewhat de-contented interior and exterior. In Canada it was sold as the Pontiac Sunburst.
The shape is reminiscent of the Hyundai Excel, and to my chagrin it was sometimes misidentified as such, despite being completely unrelated; though both were designed by Guigiaro (which undoubtedly explains the similarity). I also see a lot of Mazda 323 in the shape.
However, I found the styling of my car to be very clean, with nice looking flush glass, plastic lower side cladding and a decent set of alloys. A little spoiler on the back and the factory dark-tinted taillights were the icing on the cake.
The interior was gray and blue, the seats were covered in a nice thick cloth and were quite comfortable, and the instrument binnacle featured the same kind of rocker switches at the sides that my Audi 4000 had for the lights, and such. These were very easy to operate without removing a hand from the wheel.
Performance? Well, unfortunately there wasn’t much. In 1986 the only available engine was a 1.5l SOHC 4-cylinder engine with 70 hp; mated to a 5-speed manual it was adequate, but no more. A good cruiser but not a great climber; that’s probably the best way to describe it. I can’t imagine living with it at any higher altitude or with an automatic. At least it got good gas mileage. Later years had a turbocharged version available, and there was even a version with a handling package developed by Lotus, proudly wearing a badge to that effect.
The mid-eighties were when the Japanese hit their stride, and everybody believed that if it was “Made In Japan”, it must be good. Rust was not a concern in California, but probably was in other areas of the country. Japanese cars were flying off the lots (especially those from Honda and Toyota) and the smaller manufacturers such as Isuzu and Mitsubishi definitely got to ride the big boys’ coattails for a while there. Most of the seventies era Japanese iron is not really around anymore, but plenty from the eighties are still to be found driving around in California and other dry states.
Mechanically, mine was great; however a few weeks after I bought it, the clutch started to slip. Changing it myself was not an option, and the best (i.e. cheapest) option turned out to be the “Mobile Mechanic”. It took this guy an entire day to pull the gearbox and change the clutch in my parking lot, but afterward it worked great and I never had another issue with the car.
One evening, the car was involved in a small fender bender in a parking lot, as another student backed up into the front side of the car. Her car nudged my front left wheel and bent the fender area behind the wheel along with putting a small crease in the leading edge of the door.
Her insurance promptly wrote me a check, and while I was getting quotes to repair the damage, a body shop technician listened to me describe the wind noise that now came in through the door seal. He proceeded to open the door, held it firmly just below the window area, and gave the top edge a huge smack with his palm, nearly giving me a heart attack and making the whole door shake violently. However, that fixed the wind leak! In the end I used my hands to pull out the dent to an acceptable degree and used the insurance money to pay for my tuition; not exactly noble, but what’s a starving student to do?
The Isuzu was the first car I ever drove in the snow. A bunch of us decided to go to Lake Tahoe over New Year’s. The road, although covered in snow, did not seem too slippery until all of a sudden I found myself slightly sideways, which quickly turned into a full 720 degree spin on a downhill section, thankfully without oncoming traffic. The pictures of us fitting the chains were taken about two minutes after coming to a stop!
I made several more trips to Lake Tahoe along with a few trips along the California coast up to San Francisco, and many down to the Los Angeles area while I had the car. It always ran quietly and without complaint, completely soaking up all the abuse a college student can give a car over about 40,000 miles in a year and a half.
I finished my college career with this car, and moved up to the Bay Area to start my first real job after graduation in December 1991. When the paychecks (meager but steady) began rolling in, I knew it was once again time to change my car, so a few months after starting my career I traded this one in on something else…
Interesting car! I have to say that my knowledge of smaller Japanese makes (Isuzu/Mitsubishi/Subaru) is lacking. Made this a fun piece for me to read.
Out of curiosity, what did you replace the Isuzu with?
You’ll find out next Sunday!
I bought two chevy spectrums for $325 in the mid ninties just to see if I could save them. I was happy with the fuel savings from my 81, olds 455 equipped trans am. the good one needed a fender and it would not idle so I went to the parts store and picked a roll of vacume line and replaced every line I could see, this did nothing to fix it so I changed the carb from the parts car, that made it much better and it would only die occasionally instead of every time you came to a stop. The bottom of the fender was m.i.a behind the wheel so I filled it with monofoam and used the waxed paper and fiberglass filler trick to make the bottom of the fender. Over the next two days my roommate and I painted the thing krylon purple it turned out decent with.only one run. After letting the thing bake in our °130 garage for a couple of days we wet sanded it and put on a coat of wax that made it shine like a purple turd. I drove it for a couple of months and taught anyone who wanted to learn how to drive a standard. I traded the turd in on a 93 civic cx hatch and was shockrd when they gave me $1500 for it. If they only knew.
I love your paint booth! Sounds like a fun project, what was wrong with the “bad” one?
The previous owners huge dog ate the interior, it had the same missing (rotton) fender, needed shift linkage, struts, ball joints and a back corner window. Though I knew long before these cars, just how much fun a car that you just dont care about can be, this car brought that back with countless rally like off road excursions, and a bunch of slow car fast experiances.
That’s a cool little car, and it sounds competitive with the small cars from other Japanese manufacturers of the time.
There were some, but not many Isuzus driving around in my area. I only drove and got to work on one of these, which also was the only Isuzu-branded car I was ever in. That one was pretty beat to hell by that time, and owed by a guy that never took care of it, so I can’t really use that as a fair barometer of the quality. Still, the fact that it was still around 10 years later, here in the land of road salt, says something.
I have more experience with the Chevy/Geo variety. They did seem to be a step down in terms of interior content, but otherwise seemed like good basic transportation to me.
These were really good-looking little cars for the time. I never had the pleasure to ride in one, though. Thanks for the virtual trip.
I worked with a guy who drove a gasoline I-Mark sedan (or was that a Gemini?) and a diesel Volvo. I believe the diesel I-Mark was available in the US for a few years. Wasn’t the FWD Lotus based on the Isuzu (cue Colin Chapman rolling over in grave)?
These were Gemini in other markets, the previous generation was available as a diesel in the US, and yes the Lotus Élan did feature an Isuzu engine.
I had a Chevrolet Spectrum for a short time in 1986. Mine was a four door in blue, with 5 speed transmission. It was a completely forgettable car, which accounts for why I had forgotten it! I do recall that the fit and finish were impeccable, better than anything I had ever seen, I mean flawless. This was quite something in 1986. All the doors, for example, fit perfectly. The motor was barely adequate but I drove mine to Alberta once and it did just fine. It was also very economical to run.
Then my dad went out and bought a 1986 Jetta and I was so smitten with it, I traded my Spectrum for a Jetta, too. This turned out to be a huge mistake but we all know what youth can do to people!
How nice to go to school in the SLO area, beautiful place. These I-Marks were good looking but not very competitive. Horrible door closing sound and the engine was rough as a cob. You could hear the piston slap.
Yeah I thought it looked farmiliar this car enjoyed a brief stint with Holden badging the FWD Gemini, The RWD Gemini has quite a following amongst the rice brigade in Aussie and theres a nice 471 blown Rover V8 matt black coup’e locally nobody much is interested in them in NZ way too many rice rockets available here cheap.
GM owned Lotus for a while and we have many Isuzu Big Horns with Handling by Lotus badging on them, but the best one must have been the Vauxhall Carlton GM sent them with instructions of ‘make it go’ and it was returned as THE fastest fourdoor the planet had seen to date, a car ONLY a Ferrari could catch so on some cars that tuned by Lotus has meaning
It’s funny you mention the similarity to the contemporary 323. Not only do they look similar, their dimensions are very similar also. So much so that it’s a common (well as common as can be for cars that rare) swap to put the front bumper from an I-Mark RS on the 323 GT/GTX. It’s actually a perfect fit. Here it is on my old GTX. Yes it’s sagging but that’s cause somebody hit that corner not cause it doesn’t fit right.
Wow, that is weird about the bumpers, not something that you see very often! I love your GTX by the way, I always wanted one, very rare beast.
An Isuzu. GREAT!.
I had 2 JI Impulses, FWD and AWD.
Lovely little buggers. I still miss the FWD one.
I owned the Chevy Spectrum version of the Isuzu, a Spectrum Sport to be exact. I too experienced clutch slippage, must be a weak point in these vehicles. I had a shop replace it but failed to replace the throwout bearing so it started to make noise after awhile. I sold it to a local kid that used it for pizza delivery.
My mother in law had a Chevy Spectrum – an 86, I think, sedan with an automatic as probably its only option. She did not drive much, and with that car, I couldn’t blame her. Manual steering, the 3 speed auto that made the car slow as anything I have ever driven, and the “vent” that would blow hot air at you in the summer.
She and Mrs. JPC drove that car from Indianapolis to Dallas and back around 1992. Actually, I think Mrs. JPC drove the whole way. She deserved a medal.
By the time the car was 12 years old, it had maybe 24K on the odo, mostly grocery store and church. But it was getting rusty and she sold it for peanuts. The 98 Civic LX it was replaced with was like dying and going to heaven.
Interestingly, the 6th photo down from the top shows what I was probably driving around 1986, a 1978 VW Scirocco, even down to the “Champagne” color that was big deal for VW in ’78. Reason I mention this is I remember driving my younger sister around in my Scirocco in the late ’80s looking for a car she could drive to college (as car-oriented older brother, guess it was kind of my duty)….one of the cars we looked at was an I-Mark, which I didn’t really appreciate at the time (plus it was standard transmission…which I prefer, but neither of my younger sisters ever learned to drive on)…but for some reason we test drove the I-Mark anyhow (back then I’m sure I was thinking I could teach my sister to drive standard…I was really optomistic (wrong) and probably didn’t realize how quickly automatics would take over even in smaller cars after that…back then it was hard to find a small car that had an automatic (now it is probably the opposite situation).
Anyhow, needless to say we didn’t buy the I-Mark, but we did test drive it…since it was rear wheel drive, I remember how “tall” the shifter seemed up in the transmission tunnel compared to my Scirocco (which of course was FWD).
This is one of those cars I’d say I appreciate more now than I did then. I’m very much a contrarian, and probably (partly?) due to the fact I can’t buy a new Isuzu car anymore, I kind of wish we had bought one if even way back then.
What I wonder is if there are still mobile mechanics around who would change out a clutch? After doing it on the successor to my Scirocco (I have to mention I’ve owned only VWs for going on 32 years now), an ’86 GTI it would have been nice to have that option (I was sick as a dog, and I remember it taking the better part of a month to do it, but fortunately I had my mother’s car (loaner) while I was doing it so I didn’t have to hurry to get it done). If I could have paid for someone to replace the clutch at my house I would have gladly done so at the time.
That Scirocco belonged to a fraternity brother of mine and was just regular white, I think my old photos are starting to discolor a bit…The I-Mark was front wheel drive, maybe you are thinking of the previous generation which was rear wheel drive and even available as a diesel? I’d guess that mobile mechanics are still around, especially in smaller college towns where a lot of people drive older cars and are not really able to work on them themselves…
Great story on the 1986 Isuzu I-Mark. I bought the same model (exactly, I think!) in early 1987 brand-new among a few “left overs” on the dealer’s lot. I had planned to buy a Trooper II but it cost too much. The I-Mark was the first new car I had ever bought (it was $6400 complete) and like you, totally different than the car it replaced. I had an awful 1972 Porsche 914, the infamous “VW Porsche” that was a fun to drive money pit. The Isuzu was not fast, but willing and peppy around town (no hills!) with the 5-speed and felt so quiet and light. The seats were also better than the 914’s seats and I could finally have passengers along. Mine didn’t have A/C so I got over 40 mpg quite often for highway driving in California. I didn’t take it to Tahoe but the little I-Mark was a great camping trip carrier. I think it was wrongly ignored as it was totally more drivable than my buddy’s Toyota Corolla and more reliable. Great blue-gray color and yes, it did have nice alloys. Plus, the little tires were cheap to replace! Nice memories.
Postscript: I knew that the I-Mark’s little 1.4 was low power at 70 HP(!), but its lightness was not in my imagination! According to this source, the peppy little one only tipped the scales at 1933 pounds. Without the heavy A/C unit, power steering or power, well, anything, I think my I-Mark was hitting that sub-ton weight. It was not elegant but a happy car to drive. See http://www.automobile-catalog.com/car/1986/1259135/isuzu_i-mark_sedan.html for performance data as well. Cheers.
And who can forget David Leisure, as “Joe Isuzu,” hawking the I-Mark in ads like this one ?
Oh, yes, I really loved those “Joe Isuzu” ads. They seemed to grab your attention more than the average car advertisement. Which of course their whole purpose.
As somebody else mentioned, I, too, am sort of a contrarian. Back in the day, I’d have been more inclined to get something like this, were I to buy a new car, than a VW, Toyota, Nissan or Honda. Will say the diesel model did appeal to me and I looked for a used diesel model at one point in time.
We had a ’88 Chevy Sputum, er Spectrum, and after a year (30K miles), it was rattling and leaking oil. We sold it and bought our first Honda Civic, which was a substantially better automobile.
Well sure, that’s because you bought a Chevy, you should have gotten the Isuzu. 🙂
I’m with Jim K! My 1986 I-Mark was a better car for the price than the 1986 Civic, but that soon changed with the Geo branding. How many quality car makers in Japan, Sweden, Germany, etc.) or home grown (Spring Hill, TN) auto efforts have the GM executives and MBA’s ruined shortly after these brands showed a spark of life? Since leaving the USA car market nearly 10 years ago, Isuzu has become a profitable global business, even with GM partnerships for products that are not “cars”. I guess that it’s true that GM only knows how to build trucks (and more recently, Corvettes!). 😉
Isuzu no longer makes cars. They make trucks mostly for Asian and African markets. They are profitable as a truck maker, although net profits have been trending slightly downwards for the last few years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isuzu_Motors
https://amigobulls.com/stocks/ISUZY/income-statement/annual
I got a short ride in one of these, a 4 door sedan, back in the early 90s. From what I had read in the U. S. car magazines I had already relegated Isuzu to what I called a 3rd tier Japanese car company…right there with that Toyota “sub brand” Diahatsu, and it’s 3 cylinder gasoline engined cars. Just about every Japanese car company was a tier 1 or 2.
What I remember about that car was that the length and width looked like they were chosen to fit some outline as the car itself seemed a tad too narrow. It also looked as though the engine compartment and the trunk compartment might be the same size (shades of the AMC Hornet?).
I always wondered what these would have been like with a bigger engine.
They did make an I-Mark with a turbo engine and then also with a suspension tuned by Lotus, by most accounts it was a very capable little car.
At the same time that I had this car, one of my roommates actually had a new Daihatsu Charade with the 3-cylinder. That car was very well built and a hoot to drive. It was significantly nicer inside than most other “very small” cars available at the time, surprisingly so. Sadly, it was wrecked when she hit a bear (!) with it. But it left me impressed with Daihatsu, just because their never had a big presence in North America doesn’t mean that they are a bad automaker.
Many Japanese cars seem a bit narrow as part of the Japanese auto taxation scheme is based on width. There are even some cars that are narrower for the Japan market and then widened for our market (I believe the most recent Nissan Quest is one of these for example).
The 1.5 turbo I-Mark came in 1988, but it was fairly low output at 110 hp. In comparison, for 1989, a 1.6 DOHC was also added as the top trim with 125 hp. I’d also like to point out that in Japan (known as the Gemini), the Handling by Lotus suspension was the mid-level setup. German tuning firm Irschmer was responsible for the performance suspension in these, as well as the Piazza/Impulse. Those are considerably firmer and more aggressive than the Lotus cars.
From what I’ve read, the Isuzu I-Mark used the same body style “blueprints” from Giugiaro that Hyundai used for the mass-selling (and much lower build quality) Excel model. Albeit a modest car, the I-Mark was lighter in weight (so didn’t feel as under-powered as cars from Hyundai, Mitsubishi and Diahatsu did) and was made by an established truck and car maker in Japan. There was no hybrid between companies or re-badged models, just a group of low-priced distinctive cars (Trooper/Trooper II, I-Mark, Impulse) that despite a lack of power managed a decent following before they were blended into the GM “business model” and quickly ruined.
Kid at my high school had one of these about 20 years ago, I recall it had handling by lotus.
I’m surprised not to see mention yet of the “dancing in Paris” ad campaign they heavily promoted for these in Japan:
Don’t turn around It is the Mitsubishi Precis.
Actually the Precis is a badge-engineered Hyundai Excel which is a bit weird as the Excel was based on a lot of Mitsubishi mechanicals to begin with. Nothing to do with the Isuzu.
We don’t want to forget that in Japan cars are taxed in classes that include width measurement. The current Wiki page seems to include only two maximum width measurements among three classes; it may be that there were more classes (and/or maximum widths) in earlier decades ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_size_class#Japan
My aunt had one of these, a 1989, when we used to visit around 2002 or so.
I remember her telling me that the engine “blew up” on the drive home from the BHPH dealership she got it from and paid out of pocket for the rebuild. It was a dark blue sedan (a color my mother strangely always regarded as unreliable no less) and I remember thinking it was a poor value based on what she told me she invested in it.
She absolutely loved the car and even embroidered a pouch to carry the documents in. She drove it locally on the streets exclusively as she had since getting licensed, until one day when she needed to the hospital IIRC. Her first time merging into the LA interstate system, in an automatic I-Mark no less, must have been harrowing. She replaced it with a 1992 Corolla, not as attractive in my opinion.
They were uncommon even then and I rarely saw the sedan version. I actually really liked the styling, the reverse canted marker lights were like the contemporary Mirage/Colt.
This was the first “smaller” car I drove, an automatic sedan version, and I truly loved it. There weren’t many imported here – the then local dealer also sold Nissans and they were flying through the door, so the Isuzu Geminis (as they were called here) were mostly confined to that same company’s car rental firm. As I said, they were rare, and I haven’t seen one up and running in years. And yes, especially in that first picture, I do see a hint of Hyundai Excel in the styling, and Mazda 323 GTX in the sports model.