RIP: Isuzu departs our shores Jan. 31

I guess it’s a morbid day here around Sparkblog. Earlier I was circling, vulture-style, over the bloated corpse of Saturn. While honestly, there isn’t much levity in chronicling the demise of nameplates, with Isuzu we can at least hold one of those “the survivors should celebrate” type of funerals, looking back at some of the cool stuff Isuzu did before they went to the big junkyard in the sky. First of all, in the interest of telling it how it is, Isuzu hasn’t really been here in a while anyways. They stopped selling cars they designed themselves in 2004, and have been selling rebadged GM trucks ever since. The I-series truck is a Chevy Colorado, and the Ascender is a Trailblazer. And they sell like crap as Isuzus, let me tell you. So the guys from Tokyo are packing up and going home.

Some highlights to throw on the funeral pyre:

The Isuzu 117: OK, so it was never sold in the US, but the 117 was a sporty DOHC coupe styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro. Giugiaro also penned lots of gorgeous cars (like the Delorean DMC-12, which for all its faults was a pretty car), but in my opinion the 117 was one of his best designs.

The Bellet GT-R: also never sold in the US, this was a sporty sedan was designed by Tom Tjaarda, who was another well known designer. It used the engine from the 117 in a smaller package.

The Chevy LUV: god, this is one of the best names ever to grace a car. The LUV was a Isuzu KB-series truck that Chevy imported while they were developing the S-10, to compete with the Ford Courier (which was a Mazda B-series pickup). You could call it the war of the tiny Japanese captive import trucks.

Joe Isuzu: ok, it’s not a car, it’s a marketing phenomenon. Played by David Leisure, Joe Isuzu would make clearly absurd claims about Isuzu cars. The campaign had serious gall, and it worked. They’re hilarious. Check it out.









Pretty much everything after Joe Isuzu, including the cars, really aren’t worth the space to talk about them. Sorry Isuzu, you just weren’t that cool.