Once upon a time, the humble Sprint was the roach of the road for much of Canada. They were everywhere, in the era when it was not necessary to have a 2500 kg car to drive the kids to hockey practice.
I spotted this little Sprint in Richmond, British Columbia, where Bagel the Wonderdog and I like to walk. It is parked outside a retirement complex and is still in daily use.
I have no idea of the numbers produced or how many g-forces it made, but these cars were so popular that GM teamed up with Suzuki to produce them in Canada.
The Sprint and its Canada only Pontiac Firefly were practically legends in Canada. They were famed for going long distances with stellar fuel economy. These little cars were as tough as nails and rarely left their owners stranded. Luxury? Well, not the Sprint!
I actually rented a Sprint like this, from Rent-A-Wreck in Hawaii, in 1992.
Very basic, of course. No problems, no complaints.
Chevy Sprint and not Geo Metro? Didnt know that!
The little-remembered previous generation was called Chevrolet Sprint in the U.S. as well.
I think Geo did not exist as a Canadian brand.
Geo definitely did exist in Canada but for less time than the US.
These were sold under Suzuki, Geo, Chevrolet and Pontiac brands at various times. The Suzuki branded ones being the most rarely seen.
I still see a fair number of these (Geo Metros) — probably the most common of the 1990s minicars to be seen these days. And I tend to see more of them in rural areas than urban areas. Also, a disproportionate share of Metros seem to be driven by very large people… I have no idea why that’s so, or if that observation is just unique to me, but it’s something I’ve definitely noticed.
Ah, the Sprint/Metro/ whatever they choose to call it….the car nobody loves until gas prices spike.
I recall that in 2008, you would find these listed online for ridiculous prices when gas in the USA hit $4/gallon. People with long commutes were begging for them. An underpowered small car, weighing next to nothing, with no luxuries, so no surprise that they got almost 50mpg on the highway, at least according to the old test requirements (others have shown the real MPG as tested now closer to 40 MPG). A modern sedan usually does better than 30 MPG highway, and is a luxury cruiser by comparison. As a lover of small cars, even I would not be stuck in one for 50 miles, so you really have to be a special kind of person to own one if given a choice.
Even with recent declines in fuel prices, we are still paying C$1.20 a litre for regular in Vancouver. That works out to about US$3.50 a gallon.
All people I know drive a fuel efficient vehicle for this reason. The only ones with trucks actually need trucks.
I remember trading in my ’02 Pathfinder in ’08 when gas was $1.50 a liter up here. Probably got less for it than one of these would have fetched. Dealer told me they wouldn’t even look at a pickup since they couldn’t sell them but the Pathy they were OK with.
Still see a few of these buzzing around Port Alberni, but not so much on the 110 km/hr highway!
Had a 2-door version back in the 90’s. Absolutely wonderful little car. The trick was to buy them with the 5 speed manual. Getting the automatic turned it into an instant dog.
They came in Suzuki and Holden flavours here, good little cars and theres still few about, Holden moved its badge to Vauxhall/Opel cars after this.
Didn’t one of CC’s very own contributors design part of the assembly process for the Canadian Sprint production line? A fixture to hold the door during assembly?
The US had these as the Geo Metro and Suzuki Swift, but I could almost swear there was a sedan version called the Sprint… of course my memory of these has gone hazy and I might be confusing it with the Chevrolet Spectrum sedan which was a rebadged Isuzu I-Mark.
There is a sedan version of the Metro that was sold in the U.S. I see more of the hatchbacks though.
Suzuki had the previous generation sedan to itself, the 1996 reskin was North America-only(!) and came only in a sedan or three-door hatchback, so Chevy/Geo (and Canadian Pontiac) dealers got the sedans as a replacement for the five-door.
A.) “Bagel” is a super name for a dog 🙂 ; and
B.) It’s great to read a positive little blurb about these cars. I have no first-hand experience with them, but never heard any unusual complaints. I thought they were styled particularly well for their market segment.
I think it ranks right alongside the GMT400 trucks as one of Irv Rybicki’s Greatest Hits. The only things I’d ding it for are that it sacrificed the previous model’s bumper-height hatch opening and clever external hood latch to do it, but the former may have been the structural engineers’ call.
But then, I owned one. Great car for a guy in my early 20s (as I was) because it *felt* fast.
Bagel sends her thanks and offers, in exchange for fealty, to induct you into her realm, Joseph Dennis.
“These little cars were as tough as nails and rarely left their owners stranded.”
While I’m certainly not arguing this point, the truth of this statement may reflect more about the segment the car competed in than the basic goodness of the design-
I’m not sure the basic driveline was any tougher than other offerings from that time period. The key to success came from all the vehicle systems that were either not offered, or used old school manual systems.
If the windows use a hand crank, the heater controls connect to a cable, and the steering linkage relies on arm-strong power, you’ve eliminated a number of failure points. By leaving off steering wheel audio controls, variable delay wipers and automatic lighting systems, you’ve eliminated potential customer complaint items. Finally, using a transmission with a shift lever and clutch makes things even more bulletproof, further enhancing the reliability score.
There’s quite a few economy cars out there with a great reputation for toughness, but they achieve it at the cost of driver comfort and convenience.
You have a good point about its simplicity. But it didn’t hurt either that its basic mechanical components were well-proven and quite durable. There were quite a few other simple cars back then, and not all of them were as reliable as these.
I personally have seen these little cars with more than 300,000 km on them with no failures of any kind. The basic components that made these cars were around for decades were bulletproof. The castings on the engine, for example,are of first rate quality.
Nobody ever went 300,000 in a Chevette or Escort and got away unscathed.
While simplicity certainly helps fact is those features weren’t on other cars of this era particularly in it’s class. Fact is they did have very durable power trains. They routinely did 200k+ with minimal attention which was not that common at they time, let alone in its price class.
A buddy had a two door one of these the very same color.
He had problems driving very far so I drove it to a lot of his appointments. It was fun, kind of like driving a go kart with roll up windows.
That was until the one time I took it on our 401 freeway here in Ontario. It was the only time I’ve been frightened of Volkswagens!
After the we stayed on more local roads. It was a good car though, gave him about ten years of trouble free driving til the body rotted away.
These always scratched my minimalist’s itch, though I’ve never owned one.
There’s one near me in Surrey that’s had its rocker panels sprayed with bedliner. I assume it’s the “work commute special” for someone who can’t let its simplicity and economy go.
I had a white 1990 two door hatchback Sprint as my very first car, purchased used with 220K highway km on the clock in 1995.
It was a good car, excellent fuel mileage, very basic and simple. It seemed to scoot around just fine with the 5 speed manual. It never really needed much in the way of repairs either other than the routine items like brake pads and tires.
The only two negatives I can recall was that a) the heating/defrost/ventilation system was very inadequate for our cold Canadian winters as the insides of the windows would ice up pretty badly, and (b) the push buttons for the lights and wipers would pop loose or go flying off the dashboard.
It was sure easy to get it unstuck in the snow, all you really had to do was go around front or back and just push it out. Not a lot of weight to these things!