Curbside Classic: Geo Metro Convertible

Paul Niedermeyer
by Paul Niedermeyer

Welcome to yellow convertible week at CC. Intimations of summer are in the air, and what better way to immerse oneself into its mood-enhancing, Vitamin-D generating goodness than in a convertible, especially in a yellow one? We’re going to sample a highly diverse lot, starting with the smallest and ending with the biggest. And for true top-down motoring, its hard to be in something with four much smaller than this Metro.

Since I only have the one profile picture of the yellow Metro, this happy pair of red ones will have to do for the rest of the shots.

There’s something so endearingly goofy about this little ragtop, like it somehow escaped the Autopia ride at Disneland. It has no genuine sporting pretensions whatsoever, just a tiny two seat convertible. When was the last time that was offered for sale here? And with a remarkably similar name, no less.

Yup, the Metro is the Nash Metropolitan reincarnated. They both pursued a niche market, and one that proved to be somewhat illusory, but helped keep the production lines moving. Which in the case of the Metro, was always a bit of a problem.

Beginning with the 1990 models, Geo Metros, Pontiac Fireflys (Canada only) and Suzuki Swift were built at the CAMI plant, a 50-50 joint venture between GM and Suzuki in Ontario, Canada. Production briefly peaked at 100k units, but then began a steady slide downwards. By 2001, the Metro was history at CAMI, GM having found its successor Aveo at its Korean Deawoo division.

We’ll take a closer look at The Metro and its Chevy Sprint predecessor. It’s a polarizing car; people love it or love to hate on it. Druing times of high gas prices, the pendulum drastically swings to the positive. In 2008, folks were paying big premiums, and I seem to distinctly remember someone paying $7k for one at the height of the last gas price run up. With its little 55hp 1.0 L three-pot engine, Metros had an (adjusted) EPA rating of 38/45. The specially tuned 49hp XFi pulled a 43/51 rating.

Like most oddballs, these Metro convertibles seem to be falling into the hands of their devoted followers, just like Metropolitans were in the seventies. It’s a winning combo: top down motoring on the cheap. And who ever sits in the back seat of a convertible anyway?

More new Curbside Classics here

Paul Niedermeyer
Paul Niedermeyer

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  • Timmyc4 Timmyc4 on Aug 11, 2011

    Why are you people trashing the metro? It was never made to be high performance. Reliable as they come... yes, safe... well compared to what? These same people will drive a Motorcycle which is 100x more deadly than any metro, yet they bitch about a nice reliable... at least safer than a bike car. The lack of logic astounds me. I drive a Mustang GT Convert every day, and I have a Metro Vert just because. It is what it is... watch the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI7crBsBWKo

  • Polka King Polka King on Oct 18, 2019

    Of course the fat perfumed-ass respondents don't dig the Metro convertible. They've never had fun one day in their lives.

  • Varezhka Suzuki Jimny, Toyota Century, and I know it technically just ended production but Honda e.
  • CoastieLenn For those that care to read the details of the crash NOT included in this article but published elsewhere- this happened at nearly 10pm when the CRV was stopped in the center lane of travel, lights off, with the driver remaining in the car. Not only is it not known if Blue Cruise was being used, it would have been a nightmare for most alert human drivers to mitigate that driving the 70+mph speed limit on many sections of I-10 in Texas, much less an AV system.
  • Jeff This is what I would want: Toyota has now released an affordable truck called the Toyota IMV 0. The newly developed vehicle made in Thailand comes with a rear-wheel drive and a gasoline 2.0-liter inline-four matched to a 5-speed manual transmission. NEW $10,000 Toyota Pickup Has Ford & GM Crapping ... YouTube · Tech Machine 8 minutes, 46 seconds Dec 26, 2023
  • Jalop1991 At the same time, let's take these drivers off the road--at least the ones that haven't yet taken themselves off the road.I can guarantee, at no point was this guy or any of the dead Tesla-stans actually driving the car. They were staring at their phones, because, HEY, SELF DRIVING!!
  • 3-On-The-Tree To Maintenance Costs His best friend did the union meetings and he said that there wasn’t a lot of negotiating taking place between the union and state because they were happy with how the state was treating them. He said it seemed more like a formality having the union.
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