This blue twosome makes for a very 90s feel. They represent how much has changed, both in terms of two brands that are dead (in terms of passenger cars, for the Isuzu), and otherwise. The Isuzu Trooper (gen2) is a representative of when most SUVs were still quite truck-based, and the Olds Achieva is representative of…well, the death of Olds and GM, as well as all domestic sedans.
I had a real big thing for the gen1 Trooper II. I used to really want one despite its weak-chested engine. But there was something so practical, elemental and just right about its boxy body. But the gen2, now called just Trooper in one of the more bizarre reversals of naming traditions, just didn’t do anything for me from the get-go. It looked puffed up (not so much anymore), and its SOHC or DOHC V6 seemed a bit ambitious for what had been such a basic vehicle. Well, Isuzu was chasing the upper tier of the SUV market, given that it also made the lower-priced Rodeo.
The Trooper was also sold here as the badge-engineered Acura SLX (a car that has not made an appearance here yet) for a few years, as was the Rodeo sold as the Honda Passport. That odd chapter seems like a long time ago now.
Now this Trooper looks very elemental and pragmatic and boxy, compared to the current ones. But it still doesn’t move me; too thirsty and an iffy reliability record, unlike the gen1 which had a stellar record.
And then there’s the Achieva, which hasn’t moved in a little while from the looks of the street sweeper’s impact.
I don’t have any direct experience with these, but my father did have a similar vintage Skylark that I drove a few times, including on a multi-day trip down to Williamsburg and then out to the Eastern Shore and back to Towson. It was typical GM of the times: the roarty V6 had good initial acceleration, but petered out before long. It wasn’t very roomy, but then it was a compact. And it just felt very GM, meaning rental-grade. That’s the under-Achieva’s achievement in life, to be a popular rental car, like most GM cars back then.
Who knows, this one might well have a version of the Quad Four, which now came in both the original DOHC form as well as a cheaper SOHC development. Even with balance shafts, one could tell this was not a Honda four from the first time it ticked over.
The lichen growing on this one suggests it hasn’t seen much action in a while. One hopes so especially at night. I wonder what it’s waiting for.
That Achieva reminds me how fickle we car people are. We groan about how GM built too many cars with minimal differentiation (as we saw in my Pontiac 6000 piece last week). But then when they went the other direction and gave every brand unique sheetmetal – well nobody but rental fleets bought them.
I am the outlier and always kind of liked the styling on these – I liked how it was a mini 98, because I always liked the 98. But this car proved that there was more to the old GM Divisional system than unique sheetmetal and dashboards.
I’m right there with you on the Trooper. It was . . . nice. The prior version had been something I kind of wanted.
Underneath the different frosting and gingerbread, these were still riding the N car chassis, which itself was a stretch of the J car. Sitting next to them in the showroom was the revised X car, long ago rechristened the as A chassis. They may have been competent rental fodder, but no one was leaving a Camry or Accord to pick up one of these.
I liked the Achieva styling as well. Still do. When I had my Cutlass Ciera I’d see these and think oooo, that’s a better looking Olds. I’m sure the Ciera was the better car, though.
I also think the styling on the Achieva was pretty good (though not a fan of the enclosed wheel arches on the sedan), and the design clearly conveyed Oldsmobile styling cues like the waterfall grille. The problems weren’t style related but rather content: generic GM powertrains, cheap plastics, indifferent build quality and underwhelming driving dynamics presented insurmountable obstacles to success. The Achieva had no chance to be a Cutlass successor, even if the looks might have been able to pull it off.
As with so many GM products of this era, I wonder what would have happened if these Chuck Jordan designs from the early 1990s had been introduced in the mid-1980s. The Achieva could have rightfully been called a Cutlass Supreme had it shown up in 1985 rather than the dreadful Irv Rybicki Calais.
Those Troopers are total tanks, and the motors in them are no better or worse power wise than any of the other undersized Japanese V6s of the era IMO. The one issue ironically enough is the GM 4L30E automatic that was spec’d out for these things, why not a 4L60E in a vehicle the size of an S10 Blazer is beyond me. Buy one with a stick shift and you’re golden. Way more overbuilt in terms of axles and other hardware than most people are aware of.
I know, these look like boxy perfection for overlanding. Lots of space, lots of capability. The “lots of slow” doesn’t matter much off pavement.
As 3rd gen 4Runners climb and 80 Series are completely in the stratosphere, guys have been starting to look at things like Monteros and Montero Sports. Isuzu Troopers and Rodeos, Pathfinders and Xterras, Grand Cherokees, Jellybean Explorers and Expeditions, GMT400 Tahoes/Suburbans. Toyota (Land Cruisers especially) have a certain aura/snob-appeal that pervades the overlanding community, but it’s refreshing to see other perfectly good SUVs get some attention. I’d love to do a gen 1 Explorer with a 5spd and the tough TTB front axle, or gen 2 Montero.
Hard for me to accept that 80 Series Land Cruisers are in the stratosphere. When I sold my double-locked 1993 FZJ80 in 2008, it was a tough sell … several weeks on CL, not a huge amount of intest and had to drop my price to around $5K. And that was with 140K miles and everything worked, good cosmetically with excellent interior condition. These 2nd gen Troopers are appealing, and we had actually looked at a 1st gen (new, 4 cylinder) before buying our Vanagon. As for Acieva’s, I had one as a loaner once. The Quad 4 wasn’t THAT bad.
Snooty North American Land Cruiser owners you say? Well, serve them a heaping slice of humble pie with this turbo diesel JDM 80-series:
https://www.japaneseclassics.com/vehicle/1992-toyota-land-cruiser/
Though, for 1/3 the price I’d take this Trooper with a MANUAL gearbox!
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1997-isuzu-trooper/
Not a single Ford Explorer has crossed the bat auction block, which is strange as i’d imagine a clean first-gen would attract some attention.
“… I wonder what it’s waiting for…”
A free tow to the wrecking yard? It probably doesn’t run, and the owner doesn’t want to pay to have it towed. Maybe if it hangs around until late in the year, it could get donated to a charity which will come and get it, if the minimum $500 tax deduction means anything.
I see the mini-98 styling on the Olds, too, but on this car it looks like a girl wearing a skirt that is too long, too dowdy.
The Isuzu looks like a vehicle that is ready for some real work, unlike current CUVs that are built for jobs a little hatchback could handle, like picking up a bunch of kale at the Whole Foods Market (but isn’t that what many of them really ARE?)
I can imagine myself walking down the car rental aisle in some random airport back in the day and getting in this Olds, (sans lichen that is). When I would get home I would proudly announce that I got an Oldsmobile, not a Ford Escort or Chev Cavalier! I don’t mind the styling of this Achieva, even if the name is kind of weird.
Those leaves have been collecting for some time now it appears. This one may have breathed its last.
Is is coincidence that the brand name for an enema is also “Fleet”?
If I had an Acheiva, I’d have to put a “LITTLE LEBOWSKI URBAN” decal above the nameplate.
Hahahaha! Yes!
Can’t remember when I last saw one in the flesh. Maybe when I wrote this:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/uncategorized/my-curbside-classic-oldsmobile-achieva-sc-underachieva/
“I had a real big thing for the gen1 Trooper II. I used to really want one despite its weak-chested engine. But there was something so practical, elemental and just right about its boxy body.”
When I was a kid, a couple my parents were friends with owned a gen1 Trooper II. They might be the only people I’ve known who used their SUV in the manner portrayed in advertisements. They actually owned a pair of kayaks and used their Trooper to haul them down to the river. And to go backcountry camping. In other words they were very outdoorsy people who used their Trooper to do outdoorsy things. Probably because of that memory, I tend to think of the gen1 version as a real off road vehicle to be used for real outdoor adventures.
The second gen Trooper, probably because it came out during the SUV boom of the 1990s, just felt like yet another SUV in a sea of Explorers, Blazers, and Cherokees.
This 90s generation of Trooper certainly isn’t any LESS capable than the older ones. This isn’t like an Explorer or Pathfinder transitioning to an effete CUV FWD platform.
Maybe not in terms of actual capabilities, but my impressions were formed more by how I saw them actually being used, if that makes any sense.
None of those OLds here that Ive seen but plenty of Isuzus still on the road mostly they have the 3.1 turbo diesel engines but the Honda flavour Horizon version was V6 only with a badge extolling Hondas advanced engine technology LOL.
I remember that my opinion of Honda took a bit of a tumble when they started re-badging Isuzu SUVs. Seriously? Honda, the “smarter” engineering-driven company and masters of thoughtful, efficient (and sometimes unconventional) machines with nice road manners (for the class of products) was simply reselling utilitarian Utes from a second-tier Japanese maker–it was blasphemy! And this Trooper rebadged as an Acura (!!) was the worst offender. It was anything but “Precision Crafted Performance.”
Honda bashing aside, as Isuzu products they struck me as solid, unpretentious and rugged, so good examples of the early “truck-based” years of the emerging SUV craze.
As for the Achieva, well the less said the better. GM simply wasn’t competitive during this era, lacking refinement, quality and brand image.
Honda returned the favor by giving the 1st-gen Honda Odyssey to Isuzu as the Isuzu Oasis who wasn’t sold in Canada.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Z21ZNbRFA
And Isuzu isn’t fully dead yet in other parts of the world like Argentina and South Africa.
http://isuzu.com.ar
https://www.isuzu.co.za
Taking a page from Joe Dennis, adding musical flavour to a post, how about I apply an equally dead musical brand from the 1990s to this article. Perhaps helping people who were in their youth at the time, realize just how long ago the 90s were. 🙂
Speaking of dead musical bands of the 1990s, I guess we could also mention this. 😉
Snow’s ‘Informer’ and the 90s Escort were the perfect complement to each other. lol
I wonder if that Escort will also complement with Right Said Fred, remember the song “I’m too Sexy”?
When reflecting upon modern music, one must consider independently everything that came before Right Said Fred and everything that came after. 🙂
How dare you dis Len! They put out some great music back then and got their big break by being on the soundtrack to the movie “Go!”. Note that not one person in that video is all tatted up – Nowadays they all would be. Len’s still around, recorded a great homage to their hometown Toronto a bit back. https://youtu.be/9W_vXIvN2kU
Sorry Jim, but Len’s Billboard performance, or rather non-performance doesn’t lie:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_(band)#Singles
I suspect Len Peters (CC’s Canucklehead) currently has a bigger following in Canada, than Len. 🙂
I really like those Troopers for the same reasons you stated.
The Quad Four determines whether the Olds is an Unda-Achieva or Ova-Achieva.
The Trooper (I like the JDM name Bighorn for this model) was very similar to the Land Cruisers of that era – always looked like a serious off-roader. The Achieva and its Buick and Pontiac siblings were always more attractive in 4-door form. Apart from the moss on the headlights (probably water got in via cracks in the lenses) it looks in reasonably good shape even though clearly it’s been out of commission for a while.
The family had an ’86 Trooper II 2 door from new. It would embarrass Dad’s cousin’s Jimmy off road on the hunting trails, but it also suffered from a cracked intake manifold early on in its life during one of these journeys. Never ran 100% after that, according to Dad. He still kept it until ’95, with about 118k on it. He was interested in another one of this generation until the $32ish price tag put him off. It was a big leap from the $15k he paid in ’86. My favorite teacher ever (art) had a silver one of these. Last time I saw her circa 2006 she replaced it with a CR-V.