posted by Roshake77
Aha, an Isuzu Trooper, you say. Yes, in the US, that’s what it was called. But in Europe, it was the Opel Monterey (Vauxhall Monterey in the UK). But that’s not all; this SUV was sold with a total of thirteen different brands and/or names.
Can you list them all? if not, here goes:
Isuzu Trooper, AKA:
Isuzu Bighorn
Isuzu Citation
Acura SLX (North America)
Chevrolet Trooper
Holden Jackaroo
Holden Monterey (Australia)
Honda Horizon (Japan)
HSV Jackaroo
Opel Monterey
Sanjiu 3-Nine Trooper (China)
Subaru Bighorn
Vauxhall Monterey
Vauxhall is the UK GM brand, down under its Holden, Honda even put a sticker on them claiming the DOHC technology under the hood was theirs.
It’s interesting to see the number of model names found on these that were also used by other brands – Citation, Monterey, Horizon, and Bighorn (and likely others outside my area of familiarity). Totally different markets, but it sure seems these names have been seen as having broad location of use.
Not only that, but judging from the pictures, this looks like it’s a Monetery LTD. So add another cross-brand designation to the list.
I never knew that these were sold under the Opel brand at all.
From the list of 13 names, I think that Trooper and Bighorn are the two that are most fitting for the vehicle. Although for a slice of local flavor, it’s hard not to like the Holden Jackaroo.
This truck is a great illustration of a product from what was considered a relatively small maker of vehicles in the US that while popular, were never really “main tier”, however add the volume from sales of the same basic thing all over the rest of the planet and all of a sudden the numbers can get quite large, in the same way that VW is a gigantic automaker but a bit player in the US these days.
This generation Trooper was actually very nicely finished, with a bit of a premium feel over much of the competition during its run. We almost decided on one but went with a V8 Explorer instead back in ’98, I think it was due to the only Trooper available when we were looking being a totally loaded example, with far more gingerbread than we were looking for. Still, those that had them seemed to love them and even today they are still around up here.
The counterpart to this is (or perhaps was) GM’s use of the Chevrolet name, which has primarily been a North American brand, on smaller cars all over the world, even those with a strong identity from their source company. I’m thinking especially of the Chevy Forester, a Subaru with a bow tie. It’s as if the VW Touran were called the VW Caravan.
I absolutely loved my Trooper. Mine was a ’96 bought well used in early ’06 with 130k on the odometer. Having moved from NY to South Florida just months after the big storms that pummeled the South in late ’05, and knowing I’d need to haul furniture and garden supplies and all manner of crap, it seemed somehow “practical” to buy a fairly large SUV, despite never having any interest in large 4WD vehicles while I lived in a place where one might have come in handy. A mid-range model with V6 and 5-speed, it was the perfect combination of truck and pseudo-luxury hauler, and it had an air conditioner that could freeze meat. I got about 18 months of good service out of it before its prior owner’s shoddy maintenance started to reveal itself. I parted with it very sadly. These were great vehicles, it’s no mystery to me why they were popular pretty much everywhere, it seems.
Small typo Paul, it was the Holden Monterey in Australia, not the UK where it was the Vauxhall Monterey.
Doh! Of course; fixed now.
And, to nit upon a nit, there was never a Holden Monterey in Oz.
Dear Mr Baum esq, one hates to nit upon another’s nitted nit, but there was a Holden Monterey in the tralia of Aus! It was the top-spec model, apparently initially Jackaroo Monterey (a la Commodore Calais), then in its final year the roo jumped away and the top spec was the Holden Monterey. The Kiwi market got the Monterey badged version too, for all of 5 minutes apparently, brochure below:
As well-knit nit as your nit upon my nit (upon your nit) may be, my nit may not be un-knit without a nit (that then being a nit upon a nit upon a nit upon a nit upon a nit, incidentally).
You see, it was still a Jackaroo in Oz, and whether or not the sub-model designation thereafter was GL, Sport, Toorak, Fish Creek, Isle of Dogs or Mon Terry matters not one whit: a Holden Monterey, it was nit.
Sorry, ‘not’. (I am covered in too many nits).
To digress, I’m awfully itchy in the hair.
I salute you good sir, the quality of your nitting is knitted upon my nits – the metaphorical nits as opposed to physical, which may be alleviated by liberal doses of baldness. I concur that Holden’s de-rooification of Trooper Jack was like Ford announcing the Ford Fairmont Ghia was to be henceforth known as the Ford Ghia, which would be not at all confusing. Holden was certainly knitting something of a revolving door policy with nameplates at the time. Perhaps they should have called it Monteroo as a transitional nameplate. Right, back to my knitting…
De France, je possède un Opel Monterey de 1995, une très bonne auto.
Isuzu has always made fundamentally well-engineered vehicles, usually uninteresting, but that’s irrelevant to the buyers who know you can’t break them.
Holden sold re-badged Isuzu utes as Rodeos from about ’81, and Monterey 4wd’s as Jackaroos since about ’82 right through to 2016, when for some reason, they split. But in the modern connected world, consumers long knew full well that their unbreakable “Holdens” were actually Isuzus, and so Isuzu set themselves up here as “Isuzu Ute”, selling big-ish 4wds and Colorado-sized utes. They’ve gone gangbusters ever since: Holden of course, deceased.
In case anybody can’t sleep about it, the horizontal stop-turn-tail lights are present in the rear bumper because the spare tire carrier blocks the vertical ones in the quarter panel so they flunk angle-of-visibility requirements.