The Buick Opel by Isuzu

A 1976 Buick Opel by Isuzu. Photo by TuRbO_J, found here.

Believe it or not, the Buick Opel by Isuzu, despite having three brand names from three different continents, is entirely the work of one manufacturer, GM. For the uninitiated, Buick is one of GM's core brands in the USA, Opel was their German subsidiary from 1929 to 2017, and in 1972, GM entered into a partnership with the Japanese automaker Isuzu.

 

Since 1958, GM had been importing a limited selection of Opel models to the USA and selling them at Buick dealerships - hence the moniker "Buick Opel". The primary model they sold was the Kadett, a compact car that competed with the VW Beetle. 

By the 1974 model year, the Kadett was on its third generation, built on a brand-new GM platform known as the "T-Car". The T-Car was GM's first attempt at using one platform for compact cars worldwide, and was developed in cooperation between GM's American home division, Opel, and Isuzu. In the USA market, the T-Car is perhaps best known as the Chevy Chevette, but it went by at least two dozen names worldwide. While the T-Cars did differ significantly in details and trim, the underlying vehicle was the same between all of them. 

The T-Car based Kadett was the last Kadett to make it to the USA, sold in the 1974 and 1975 model years as the Buick Opel. Unfavorable exchange rates between the Deutsche Mark and the U.S. dollar were making the Kadett-based Opel uncompetitively expensive, and for the 1976 model year GM decided to pull a switcheroo: take the Isuzu Gemini, Isuzu's version of the T-Car (when are they ever going to make a car called the Capricorn!), and slap the Buick and Opel badges on it. 1976 was also the year the Chevette itself went on sale, so you had your choice of the German, American, or Japanese T-Car - just not all at the same time.

The Buick Opel by Isuzu did not sell well - barely cracking 25,000 units in its best year, 1976 - while the Chevette would see great success, peaking at almost 450,000 sales in 1980. In 1979, the Buick Opel by Isuzu was discontinued. 

The Isuzu Gemini itself, however, would make a return to the USA in 1981, this time as Isuzu began selling cars under its own name in the region. Renamed the I-Mark (seriously, what was wrong with the name Gemini), the I-Mark would go into a second generation in 1985 and a third in 1990 (as the Stylus) before being discontinued in 1993. 

How Mitsubishi entered the USA market

 

A Dodge Ram 50 pickup truck, one of the Mitsubishi models sold by Chrysler Corporation under its own name. 

Mitsubishi has a long history of joint ventures and partnerships, and a significant percentage of Mitsubishi-built vehicles over the years have left the factory with a badge other than Mitsubishi. Every car they sold in the USA market in their first decade fell in this category. 

The story begins on April 22, 1970, when Mitsubishi Motors was formed as a division of the Mitsubishi keiretsu. A keiretsu is a large Japanese company with diversified activities; Mitsubishi's include banking, nuclear power, electronics, Nikon cameras, the HVAC unit in the upstairs of my house, and their eponymous car industry. Mitsubishi had built cars as early as 1917, and was getting pretty successful in Japan by the 1960s. The introduction of a specialized division for cars made their operations more efficient and facilitated their introduction to international markets, the USA market being among the most lucrative. 

Tomio Kubo, who was appointed as leader of Mitsubishi Motors, decided to forge alliances with well-established foreign companies to enter their car markets. For the USA market, this meant Chrysler Corporation. Chrysler bought a 15% stake in Mitsubishi in 1970, and began selling the Mitsubishi Galant as the Dodge Colt that year. This gave Chrysler a car to sell in the subcompact class alongside the other "Big Three" automakers, who had introduced the Ford Pinto and Chevy Vega the same year. 

While this isn't among the official reasons, I'm guessing that one of the reasons that Mitsubishi partnered with Chrysler was that WWII veterans, many of whom wouldn't buy anything German or Japanese, much less a car with the same badge on it as the company who'd made the infamous Zero fighter plane. These veterans still made up a huge chunk of the American car buying market in the early 1970s; add in people who remembered WWII from the homefront, and you have pretty much anyone over 35 at the time. Nissan sold their cars under the "Datsun" name in many markets prior to the mid-1980s, partially for this very reason. 

Chrysler would go on to sell a variety of Mitsubishi products in the coming years. Among them were the Plymouth Arrow, a Mitsubishi Lancer Celeste (Celeste being a hatchback coupe model), starting in 1976. The Colt would switch from being a Galant to a Lancer with its 1977 model redesign, effectively making the Colt and Arrow different variations of the same model. The Galant coupe would make a return for the 1978 model year, badged as the Dodge Challenger and Plymouth Sapporo. The Galant's wagon variant also went on sale as the Dodge Colt wagon. The next year, 1979, brought the Mitsubishi Mirage to America - as the redesigned Dodge Colt and also under a new nameplate, Plymouth Champ. I know, confusing. 

When Mitsubishi introduced a pickup truck in 1978, the United States market also got it, first as the Dodge D-50 and Plymouth Arrow Truck. The D-50 name was changed to Ram 50 for the 1981 model year, in line with the larger, unrelated Ram truck. The other Big Three automakers had also re-badged Japanese models to get into the compact pickup truck market; the Ford Courier, from Mazda, and the Chevy LUV, from Isuzu. 

In 1982, Mitsubishi would finally sell cars under its own name in the States, but it and Chrysler would remain intricately linked. Chrysler maintained the right of first refusal on Mitsubishis sold in the USA until 1990 - if Chrysler didn't like it, it didn't come to over. The initial Mitsubishis included the Tredia subcompact, Cordia compact coupe, and Montero SUV, sold exclusively as Mitsubishis, as well as the Starion sports coupe and Mighty Max pickup truck - which had Chrysler-badged variants in the form of the Plymouth Conquest and Dodge Ram 50.

After 1983, the Challenger was canned, and Mitsubishi brought the Galant to the USA under its own name in 1985. The Mirage also came over as a Mitsubishi in '85, although Chrysler continued to sell its version as the Colt under both Dodge and Plymouth brands. 

Some Mitsubishis continued to come to America re-badged as Chrysler brands, however. The Mitsubishi Chariot, a small minivan, came to America as the Colt Vista - sold either as a Dodge or a Plymouth, starting in the 1984 model year. In 1987, a Chrysler-rebadged Mitsubishi Montero was introduced as the Dodge Raider. 

Mitsubishi and Chrysler formed a joint venture, Diamond Star Motors, in 1985. At the time, Japanese car makers had put in voluntary export quotas - which meant they could only send over X number of cars to the USA, Chrysler-badged Mitsubishis included. DSM aimed to build certain vehicles, designed by Mitsubishi and Chrysler in collaboration, at a new plant in Normal, Illinois. The plant opened in 1989, initially producing the new Mitsubishi Eclipse, Eagle Talon, and Plymouth Laser. 

Chrysler's new Eagle division, started in 1988, included a rebadged Mitsubishi model. The Eagle Summit was a rebadged Mirage - meaning you could get a Mirage under three brands; its own brand, as a Dodge Colt, or the new Summit. Then, of course, there was the Talon, which became Eagle's best-known model, developed by DSM, meaning it had some serious Mitsubishi engineering kicking around.

The Dodge Stealth, a rebadged Mitsubishi 3000GT, was introduced in 1990, among the last new Mitsubishis introduced under a Chrysler brand.

Chrysler ceased badging Mitsubishis under their own name in the 1990s. The Dodge Raider bowed out after 1989. The Mitsubishi Chariot saw a redesign for 1991, this time sold in America as the Mitsubishi Expo. The Colt, Ram 50, and Plymouth Laser were all discontinued after 1994. The Summit and Stealth bowed out after 1996, marking the end of Chrysler-badged imported Mitsubishis. The Eagle Talon, developed by DSM, remained in production until 1998.

Mitsubishi also bought out Diamond Star Motors in 1995, and it became Mitsubishi Motors Manufacturing of America. The plant remained open until 2015, producing various Mitsubishi models for the American market, including the Eclipse, which was discontinued in 2011.

Chrysler and Mitsubishi's alliance continued into the mid-2000s, with the two companies sharing some engineering and design, including the GS platform which underpins the Outlander and Eclipse Cross to this day, and several Chrysler Corp. models until 2017. Today, Mitsubishi is part of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi group, while Chrysler is merged with Fiat. 

The Sao Penza: Sao What?

 

A Sao Penza, or it might as well be (it's a 1988-1989 Mazda 323).

The Sao Penza is not an unusual car per se; it gets its unusual status from being one of those odd badge-engineer jobs. The Sao brand produced this one model, known as the Penza, from 1991 to 1993. Only 1,000 were sold, and just one remains in an unroadworthy state. 

If you want to experience the Penza for yourself, it's not quite the unicorn you think it is. It's just a 1986-1989 generation Mazda 323. There's nothing unusual about the 323 of that vintage; it was a pretty standard compact car sold in large numbers, your basic, functional commuter car. 

But the Penza was made by the South African Motor Corporation (Samcor), which operated from 1985-1998 and was a merger of the Ford Motor Company of Canada's South African operations and Sigma, which built a mixture of Mazdas, Peugeots, Citroens, and Mitsubishis for the South African market. Samcor produced Ford and Mazda models for the South African market, badged as what they were: Fords and Mazdas. 

Except for the Penza. The Penza was, peculiarly, only sold in the United Kingdom. It was only available in two colors - a pinkish red and a light blue. The SAO name has been speculated to stand for "South African Origin". Penza? I'm stumped. There are quite a few vehicles named after geographic locations, like the Chevy Malibu and Bel Air, Chevy Tahoe, and Buick Riviera, but Penza is an industrial city in Russia, hardly the vacation spot that most of these names are based on. 

The naming and marketing for this one left me scratching my head. 

Model Year Madness

 A model year will tell you, generally, when a car was built. Usually, a new-model car will launch in the second half of the previous year; for instance, most 2021 cars are launching in the second half of 2020. Usually, a model year denotes a period of production of about a year; for instance, my car, the 2011 model Honda Accord, was made from about August 2010 to August 2011 (mine was built in March 2011). While cars launched in the latter half of a calendar year are usually cut-and-dry, what do you do if your new model is ready for sale in the early part of the year? Start the new year early, or call it the current model year?

One car with a model year could be more than two years older than another with the same model year, and vehicles with model years two years apart could be the same model year. Here's why:

Early-Launched Vehicles: A vehicle can legally be sold as a model year on January 1 of the previous year, for instance, 2021 vehicle can legally be sold as early as January 1, 2020. This has led to cases where vehicles have been made two years before their labeled model year. 

The 1995 Dodge Neon, for instance, went into production on November 10, 1993, and went on sale in January 1994 - just late enough to be called a '95. 

The 1997 Ford F-150 was another example, going into production on December 5, 1995 - and on sale in January 1996. Ford actually made the new design and the previous-generation F-150 alongside each other for several months in 1996, but called the new design the '97 and the old design the '96. 

Late-Launched Vehicles:  

The first-generation Ford Mustang is a famous example of a vehicle that launched late in a model year. Launched on April 17, 1964, it was still called a 1964 model (technically a 1964-1/2). There are more recent examples of spring-launched vehicles that carried the old model year. Two consecutive generations of Nissan Sentra - the 1995 and 2000 redesigns - launched after the first of the year, leaving new '94 Sentras on sale into early 1995 and new '99 Sentras on sale into early 2000. The "2008.75" Dodge Challenger went into production on May 8, 2008. 

Update Post: The Acura ZDX, Test-Driven (+ face reveal)

Since this blog was created, it's been on my bucket list to test drive a car featured in one of the original cycle of posts from early 2014 (and preferably not one of the "common" ones like the Saturn, Smart, or Mercedes CLS, but something rarer). Being in Tennessee, that was easier for some cars than others. Many were only sold in foreign markets. Many are not just rare, but EXTREMELY rare. Many are very old and/or unsafe, meaning they would be more difficult to drive and most would have disappeared from use due to attrition. A big shout-out to Gary Force Acura in Brentwood, TN, for letting me come down and test drive this ZDX, which was the first ZDX they had gotten in at least four years (and Gary Force is a sizable dealership, the only one in the Nashville area, and there are no others in a 100 mile radius). I saw this one on CarGurus just after midnight, and set up a test drive as soon as possible: the actual test drive started around 1:25 pm that same day, July 15, 2019. That's me in the green "W" shirt.

Here is the ZDX's original post from February 4, 2014. It's worth a read alongside this one.

With only 7,191 made from 2009 to 2013, the Acura ZDX could definitely be considered "rare". Torque News said in 2015 that it's "destined to be a collector car". It was definitely a niche vehicle: sort of a cross between a sports coupe and an SUV. It sat near the top of Acura's lineup during its production, starting at $45,495 in 2010 (compared to the MDX SUV at $42,230 and the RL luxury sedan at $46,830). Its design is striking, with flush rear door handles to complete the coupelike look. You'll definitely notice this one in a crowded parking lot.

The ZDX shares a platform with the Honda Pilot and Acura MDX, but the interior is largely the same as a fully loaded TL of the same vintage; button-filled and high tech, but easy to use. It drives as good as any Acura sedan of the era and doesn't feel like the 4,458 lbs that it weighs. The seats are quite comfortable, and the driving position is good. Despite the coupe-like roof line, I still felt like I had plenty of room, and I'm 6' tall. Also, the one I drove had about 170,000 miles and still drove like it was brand new.

My post in 2014 was right: the ZDX is a thoroughly unique car that's easy to live with. The only issues are visibility, which isn't great from the rear; however, all ZDX's come with a rear view camera, and a blind spot information system is optional.

The Coda Electric Car

Coda Electric Car, from here. Photo by Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Despite the fact that this car looks straight out of 1999, the Coda electric car was produced in 2012-2013 and competed with the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf. "Competed" is used loosely here, as only 117 Codas were sold. Even though the Coda was sold only in California, this is still, to put it lightly, a dismal number. Codas were $38,145; the Volt started at $39,145 and the Leaf $35,200.

As its looks suggest, the Coda was built off of outdated bones. It used the body of the Hafei Saibao, a Chinese car built from 2005-2008 which was loosely based on the 1997-2001 Mitsubishi Mirage design. Coda did modify the design to improve safety, but it was still largely a 7 year old design with 16 year old underpinnings. The Volt, on the other hand, shared its platform and much of its design with the Cruze, a well-reviewed, thoroughly up-to-date small car that came out for the 2011 model year alongside the Volt. The Leaf was an all-new platform also introduced for the 2011 model year, and looked and drove like something from 2011 as well.

Speaking of safety, the Coda only received a 2 star front-impact driver crash test rating from NHTSA (out of 5 stars). It got 4 stars for the front passenger in the same front impact and 5 stars for both front and rear occupants in the side impact, although there were still problems: the side curtain airbag did not fully deploy in the side impact, allowing the rear passenger dummy's head to hit the window, and the Coda only got 3 stars in the "side pole" crash test. The Volt? All 5-star except for the front-impact front passenger, which was still 4 stars. The Leaf had 4 stars for both occupants in the front impact, a 5 star safety rating, and 4 stars in the side pole crash test/ In addition, they both had an IIHS Top Safety Pick rating; the Coda was never tested by IIHS.

Car and Driver said that the Coda "incorporated all the charm of a late-’90s Daewoo Nubira for the price of a well-equipped Audi A4.", pointing out that the Coda had no cruise control or auto up-and-down power windows. 

Wow. 

The Buick Envision: A Chinese SUV in the USA

Buick Envision. Photo by Alexander Migl.

Back in the 2000s, there was widespread talk of Chinese-built vehicles entering the USA market. The Chinese economy was growing rapidly, and a large middle class was emerging there, causing car sales and production to skyrocket. As late as 1985, only 5,200 cars were built in China. By 2008, China was the number-one country for automobile production in the world. Chinese cars were exported to most of the world, with the United States being one of the main holdouts. Safety was a big concern; many Chinese cars then were known for folding up like tissue paper in crashes. The Landwind, Brilliance BS6, and Chery Amulet were three well-known examples whose crash tests were seen around the world.

Times have changed. Chinese cars of today are much better in quality than they were a decade ago. Today, over a third of cars in the world are built in China, a total of over 24 million. Four models sold in the United States are built or have been recently built in China. The Buick Envision and Volvo S90 are exclusively imported from China. The Cadillac CT6 plug-in hybrid is built in China, but the standard variant is still built in Hamtramck, Michigan. The Volvo S60 Inscription was previously built in China, but since late 2018 all S60 variants have been built in South Carolina. 

Of these four models, the Envision was the first to launch and is by far the best-seller. It is a compact premium crossover SUV that starts around $32,000. Reviews have been good, but worse than many vehicles in its class. Sales have been around 30 to 40 thousand per year.

Why a Buick? Believe it or not, Buick has been a very prestigious brand in China for over a century. Today, about 80 percent of Buicks sold in the world are sold in China.