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Junkyard Gem: 2000 Honda Passport 4WD

The suits at American Honda Motor Company must have spent the bulk of the 1990s tearing out their hair in frustration as their rivals raked in big money from the sales of ever-more-profitable SUVs, even as American car shoppers lost interest in sedans and hatchbacks. Oh, sure, the Civic-based CR-V appeared here for the 1997 model year and sold well enough, but the lack of a larger SUV pained Honda more with each passing year. With the Acura MDX and Honda Pilot not ready for showrooms until the 2001 and 2002 model years, respectively, some stopgap had to be found. Isuzu stepped up and made a deal with Honda: the Rodeo would get Honda badges and become the Passport, while the Trooper would show up in Acura showrooms with SLX badges (for the 1994 and 1995 model years, respectively). Here's one of those Passports, found in a Denver-area self-service yard. Things got even weirder in the Isuzu/Honda world around the turn of the century, with the Honda Odyssey getting Isuzu badges and being sold as the Oasis. Fast-forward to 2009, and the only Isuzu-badged vehicles available new here were rebadged Chevrolets: the I-Series pickup (Chevy Colorado) and the Ascender (Chevy Trailblazer). The Passport name has some interesting American Honda history, stretching back to the first Honda vehicle sold here (and the biggest-selling motor vehicle in human history): the Super Cub. American Honda Motor Company couldn't use the Super Cub name on our shores, because Piper Aircraft had been selling a small plane called the Super Cub since 1949, so the motorcycle was called the Honda 50 over here. Eventually, this bike got a 70cc engine and became the Honda C70 Passport, sales of which continued through the middle 1980s. That means the Passports sitting in your local Honda dealership right now got their name from a one-cylinder motorcycle. General Motors has a Passport connection as well; when GM created the Geo brand to sell rebadged Isuzus, Suzukis, and Toyotas in the United States, it created a marque called Passport to sell the Daewoo LeMans as the Optima in Canada (all the other vehicles sold by Passport dealers were Isuzus). So, Honda's need to offer SUVs in its American dealerships led to an arrangement with GM-connected Isuzu to sell these trucks with a model name bearing links to both companies. So much history in the junkyard! Just as Geo-badged Toyota Corollas (mostly) got Delco radios, so did the Passport get Honda radios.

Junkyard Gem: 1994 Isuzu Rodeo 4WD

After a decade in which Isuzu-built Chevrolet LUV pickups, Isuzu-engined Chevrolet Chevettes and Isuzu Geminis with confusing "Opel by Isuzu" or "Buick/Opel Isuzu" badges, Isuzu finally began selling Americans its vehicles with Isuzu badging in the early 1980s. There were Isuzu cars, sure, but the P'up pickup and (starting in 1984) the Trooper SUV showed that Isuzu was likely to rake in the most yen by selling trucks on this side of the Pacific. The three-door convertible Amigo appeared here in 1989, but it was a little too small and silly to sell much among the suburban-commuter set. For the 1991 model year, a five-door Amigo sibling showed up: the Rodeo. The early Rodeo is getting quite rare today, but I was able to find this fairly clean '94 in a Denver-area self-service yard a few months back. These trucks, which were based on the same chassis as the P'up (known as the Isuzu Pickup after 1987) sold well in Colorado. You could get the first-generation Rodeo with rear-wheel-drive, but the four-wheel-drive version made more sense if you wanted to slog through snow and mud in the Rockies (or just feel safe when crossing a parking lot dusted with the white stuff). This truck has true four-wheel-drive, not what eventually became known as all-wheel-drive, but at least the higher trim levels had automatic locking hubs instead of the manual sort that forced you to stop and kneel in the mud to switch. Americans loved automatic transmissions nearly as much in 1994 as we do today, but they cost a lot more relative to manuals back then. This truck has a five-speed manual. The MSRP on this truck was $19,249, or about $39,075 in 2022 dollars. If you wanted it with an automatic transmission, the price went up to $20,349 ($41,310 today). The air conditioning in this one cost an additional 850 bucks (1,725 bucks now). The engine is an Isuzu 3.2-liter V6, rated at 175 horsepower. This truck was built at Subaru-Isuzu Automotive in Indiana; Subaru eventually bought out Isuzu's share of the joint venture and now only Subaru models are built there. Just to add another manufacturer to the mix, Honda sold rebadged Rodeos with Passport badges (and rebadged Troopers as Acura SLXs). This one was well-cared-for, looking clean for a machine with close to 200,000 miles on the clock. We can assume that some costly mechanical ailment finally sent it to this, its final parking place.

Junkyard Gem: 2004 Isuzu Axiom

Though the final Isuzu-badged car sold in the United States was the 1993 Isuzu Stylus, Isuzu did very well selling trucks here during the remainder of the 1990s. Things still looked pretty good for Isuzu as the new century dawned, but by then everybody had upped their truck game and many of the competition's offerings made Isuzus seem old-fashioned. Isuzu cooked up a distinctive new body for the Rodeo chassis, arranged to have it built at Subaru's plant in Indiana, and called it the Axiom. You won't see many Axioms today, but I found this last-year-of-production example in an Oklahoma City car graveyard recently. As we all know, the decline and fall of Isuzu in North America accelerated quickly as the 2000s progressed. The VehiCROSS was interesting but just too weird and it got the axe after 2001. The increasingly antiquated Trooper held on through 2002, the Amigo (aka Rodeo Sport) through 2003, and that left just the Axiom and Rodeo to hang on by their fingernails into 2004. By 2005, the only new Isuzu-branded passenger vehicles sold in the United States were two rebadged Chevrolets: the Ascender (Trailblazer) and i-Series pickup (Colorado). In early 2009, Isuzu announced that it would be departing, presumably forever. You can still buy new Isuzu commercial trucks here, of course. The 2004 Axiom had MSRPs starting at $24,849 for the S trim level with rear-wheel-drive and going up to $30,499 for the upscale XS with all-wheel-drive. That's about $40,703 and $49,958 in 2023 dollars. Joe Isuzu was brought back after a decade of retirement to pitch the Axiom. Note that Joe's brag in this commercial is how much cheaper the Axiom was than the Volvo Cross Country. This truck is the cheap Axiom S 4x2, which still seems well-appointed. The 2004 Axiom's 3.5-liter V6 engine made 250 horsepower and 246 pound-feet, up from 230 horsepower and 230 pound-feet in the 2002-2003 Axioms. The power improvements were the result of the switch to gasoline direct injection fuel delivery for the '04 Axiom. Isuzu was so proud of the system that it applied these badges. The only transmission available was a four-speed automatic. The Axiom was introduced to the American public as the SPYMobile in the 2001 film "Spy Kids." The body and interior of this one appear to be nice enough for a 19-year-old vehicle, so we can assume that it showed up in this place as the result of expensive mechanical problems. We'll get to the Joe Isuzu ads in a moment.