One of the best things about haunting high-inventory-turnover self-service junkyards is finding really rare vehicles. Sometimes those ultra-rare machines are ancient European cars nobody remembers, sometimes they are commonplace cars with options nobody ordered, and sometimes they are obscure imported minivans that disappeared without a trace.
Today’s Junkyard Find is the third type, with a bewildering badge-engineering subplot that made sense to about a half-dozen suits in Japan.
I still haven’t managed to find a Suzuki Equator in the junkyard, but I have been hunting for a junked Isuzu Oasis for many years. Finally, here’s a first-year example that showed up last week in a Denver yard.
The Oasis was really a first-generation Honda Odyssey minivan, and it was the result of the deal that allowed Honda to sell Isuzu Rodeos as Honda Passports (confusingly, the Honda Super Cub — most-produced motor vehicle of all time — was sold in the United States with Passport badging). While Honda vehicles in the mid-to-late-1990s had an enviable reputation for quality and value, Isuzu was an edge-case marque that few considered when minivan shopping.
The first-generation Odyssey was amazingly space-efficient and drove well, but (much like the Mazda5 today) it was a bit too Japanese (i.e., small and underpowered) for American minivan shoppers. The poor Oasis never had a chance in the showrooms.
Sales were miserable, and it appears that most Oases ended up as New York City taxicabs. This one may have been the only example remaining in Colorado.
[Images: © 2016 Murilee Martin/The Truth About Cars]
Someone needs to bag those front wheel knuckles for their 90-97 Accord 5 lug swap……
I find Oasis subdued 90’s styling a heck of a lot more attractive than todays angular vacuums.
Agreed. Very Honda Clean with airy greenhouse.
Just think how inadequate the owner of an Oasis felt when a dustbuster Olds Silhouette pulled up next to it at the lights.
I want an NOS dustbuster SO badly!
That would be like shrinking to Japanese size and driving an older Fit.
The Cadillac of minivans. Chili Palmer says so.
Sitting there in your four cylinder Oasis, when a black over tan Silhouette comes up, lace alloys gleaming!
With plastic panels (with horrific gaps) and the GM 3.8L V6, basically as long as you did the required maintenance by the book the Olds was unkillable.
Bizzaro styling, and for the love of God don’t get the power sliding doors or the air suspension. They don’t rust per se, the 3.8L just goes and goes and goes (again, as long as you do what you’re supposed to do in caring for it) and although the seat fabric and carpet stains just looking at it, they are made out space shuttle tiles and just — last (reference junk yard find pics of American interiors of the era)
APaGttH, you wash your dirty mouth and take back what you said about the Doraville build quality.
I spent my childhood in a series of these U body vans from 1992 all the way through a Montana in 1998.
The all plastic body panel panel variant was between ’94 and ’96. The seats were perfect for a bunch of little grade school to middle school aged kids.
Our plastic paneled U body missed the 3800 as it was a 1996 with the 3400.
The rear air compressor was by far the most intelligent feature I’ve seen for a family hauler. It blew up many air mattresses and fixed many blown bike tires during camping trips.
Thank god we never got smoked in a head on collision, though.
I had a 1997 Honda Odyssey. Underpowered for sure, but it got decent mileage, ran good, and had great site lines. I gave it to my Mom many years ago and the engine finally let go this past spring with 189,000 miles on it.
I like open greenhouses and good site lines, which I guess explains why I got another Sienna. I would like to see this metric included in car surveys to see how important it is to buyers. I wonder if that is some of the draw for people who buy Subarus.
“I would like to see this metric included in car surveys..”
Eventually the OEMs may put down the 18-26-male kool aid and ask questions like that of their important demographics.
OEMs are making millions of virtually identical CUVs and SUVs for 18-26 year old males?
What gets advertised more heavily, horsepowery sedans and coupes or CUVs?
OK, the answer is pickups. They’re right on the ball with those.
Pickups represent the most popular and often most discounted vehicle.
And I think Dodge has the 18-26 year old in mind when designing the Challenger, not the Journey.
The Honda Passport, aka Isuzu Rodeo, were quite popular for a time. The *joke was that buyers thought they were getting Honda quality in their SUV.
*I have no idea how reliable these were but I’m way more likely to see an Accord from this era than a Passport.
Early in Passport production I had the misfortune of getting stuck behind one after an ice storm had coated our little corner of Ohio. I was driving Dad’s mid 80s B-body wagon and making better progress than this Passport with 4×4 badges. If Dad hadn’t been in the car with me I would have passed the Passport on a flat Ohio state highway.
I still see Rodeos every once in awhile, but not as many as I used to. I see an Odyssey or Oasis occasionally, too.
The Rodeo was such an appalling piece of junk. It could not be saved by the nice two-tone Passport trims.
There’s a couple of older fellas who live down the street from me and one of them alternates between a maroon Rodeo and a maroon Sentra same mid 1990s vintage and the other guy drives a Mazda RX8.
As an ex-Honda fan I got sucked into the Isuzu Rodeo thinking if it was good enough for Honda to put their name on it must be decent. WRONG! That Rodeo holds the record for the least amount of time in my driveway. I bought it new and sold it 8 months later. Terrible, terrible vehicle. It got stuck in some slightly moist ground near a lake where I was fishing and had to be towed out. So it had terrible on road AND off road manners. And to think I traded a near perfect ’89 Prelude Si for that lumbering thing.
Now where is the Isuzu version of my Dodge Dakota? Those are only slightly more common than this Oasis.
@PrincipalDan and JMII
I don’t see how a Rodeo/Passport with a functioning part time 4wd system would be any more prone to poor traction than anything else, unless they both had bald tires or something? Nothing about their 4wd system makes them any less capable than any other 1990s vintage SUV.
It was my first experience with SUV lifestyle vehicle posers who had no idea what their vehicle was capable of and therefore were likely more dangerous than if they had just gotten an Accord
No such thing as the Isuzu version of the Dakota. When the majority of the Japanese mfgs bailed out of the pickup market and went the re-badge route they continued to dance with the partner that brought them to America. So we had the Mazda Ranger, Isuzu S-10/Colorado and the Mitsubishi Dakota if you wanted a mini truck with a Japanese brand name but not a Toyota or Nissan.
The Mitsubishi badged version of the Dakota was the Mitsubishi Raider
gtemnykh – not sure why but it is literally the only vehicle I have even gotten stuck. I pulled my boat with a Ford Ranger for a few years and managed to climb out of boat ramps that were nothing more then a notch cut into a river bank.
madanthony – that’s what I was thinking of… Mitsubishi. So rare I forget who rebadged them.
Well JMII I’m willing to bet that most other midsize SUVs would have gotten just as stuck in that moist ground. Sometimes spots of level ground can be deceivingly slick. I was almost stuck a few weekends ago on what turned out to be a very slick little piece of two-track that cut through some brush to avoid a big mudhole. There was my big beefy 4Runner with its foot of ground clearance, locking rear diff, etc. almost immobilized by what looked to be a perfectly innocuous situation. My all season tires didn’t help, but even all terrains would have struggled in that kind of snotty/silty mud. I realized my predicament and very smoothly and slowly backed out. Had a spun my wheels a bunch, I would have simply dug myself in, as my tires have very poor self-cleaning action, as opposed to proper mud-terrains.
And the Mitsu Raider was more than a rebadge in my book, since it had a unique front clip and bed sides. Same cab, though.
I had one of their pickups of this vintage, I think it had the same motor. Busted a valve at like 80k.
It was death on ice. 30 mph or you were heading to the ditch.
The Isuzu trucks (“P’up”) used the 2.3L I had in my Trooper (one year only for Trooper, continued in the truck and 2wd Amigo). They had a pretty high failure rate. The engine in my Trooper had been replaced previously, truck had like 150k at the time.
Their GM-sourced automatic seemed to be the most common failure point. My buddy was trying to get one going last week for a single-mother coworker.
I found lots of Rodeo/Passport parts junkers, almost all said “bad transmission” or that it was sold.
The GM-sourced French-made BMW-shared auto tranny in the Trooper was it’s glass jaw; I’ve replaced mine twice now and continue to keep my fingers crossed at 250k miles.
The Trooper’s Honda doppelganger was the Acura SLX…after my deer strike 2 years ago I put the classy SLX grill on and like the look. I can imagine the Passport and SLX owner’s ire when their cars weren’t nearly as reliable as Hondas. OTOH the Oasis owners must have thought they struck the lottery.
Soon enough though the CR-V, MDX and Pilot made things right in the Honda world; the could pull their pants up after Honda was caught at the beginning of the SUV craze with no product or plans.
A crazy marriage to say the least.
The most more craziester SUV item was of course the Honda Crossroad.
http://playswithcars.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/crossroad1.jpg
underpowered and couldnt drive comfortably past 62mph. it was louder then a 6hp snapper lawnmower.
Wonder why someone took a hammer to its odometer, climate control and radio.
^ This.
My first thought was jilted girlfriend, but it’s hard to imagine that too many players roll in a ’96 Oasis
“The Oasis was really a first-generation Honda Odyssey minivan, and it was the result of the deal that allowed Honda to sell Isuzu Rodeos as Honda Passports”
And don’t forget, Isuzu Troopers as Acura SLX’s!
At least they waited until Isuzu stopped using GM OHV V6 engines.
The finest trooper ever made was the SLX! Such luxury and huge sunroofs.
…And fragile BMW transmission.
‘And fragile BMW transmission.”
More accurate to say GM transmission, but you’er right the 4L30E was installed in a number of automatic Bimmers in the 1990s. Not sure what Isuzu was thinking, since GM put the stronger 4L60E into their own S10 blazers at the time.
My mistake! I always had in my mind it was a BMW unit. They must have been trying to save some small amount of money? Clearly the weight of the thing was too much for that transmission.
Why wouldn’t they use the 4L60E I wonder? Trooper is plenty heavy.
BMW has rarely made transmissions, AFAIK. most of the time they buy them from ZF and Getrag.
There were Isuzu badged Accords in the JDM.
In Japan (and a few other export markets, but not the U.S.,) the Isuzu Aska,which was originally based on the GM’s J-body (Chevy Cavalier), became a badge-engineered Honda Accord 4-door sedan. The Isuzu Stylus became a badge-engineered Honda Civic.
A first generation Odyssey is almost exactly what I am looking for, if I could get one brand new. Great sightlines. Good mileage. Expansive seating for 4 plus luggage and/or the dog. Decent seating for 6 when required.
There are still a remarkable number on the road in southern Ontario, demonstrating reliability/durability.
A much more logical choice than a CUV and a more useful size than today’s supersized mini-vans.
In Siberia I’d see the AWD JDM variants of these, very versatile vehicles. The rear control arms on the AWD variants are surprisingly beefy looking, almost like what the Ridgeline rear suspension looks like.
My relatives in Moscow had a German-market Honda ‘Shuttle’ (gen 1 Odyssey) for quite a while when they still had their rottweiler and made frequent trips to their dacha summer home and hauled tools and seedlings. That thing did pretty well in Moscow traffic, my uncle is a pretty aggressive driver and really kept that 2.2L on the boil, the car would hold 90mph on the highway pretty easily and didn’t feel too overworked, even with a full load of passengers. The key there being keeping the engine at full song.
As with most Hondas.
I like the first Oddy. I was seriously considering them back in Florida. I saw one the other day with 350,000 miles on it.
A friend of mine had one of these when they decided it was time for a minivan. The Isuzu dealer was much more willing to deal than the Honda dealer and their ADP sticker which meant that he saved something like $3K vs a similarly equipped version carrying a Honda badge.
Wasn’t there a good story about someone who had one and swapped Honda badges on to get out of parking tickets? The cop would write down that it’s a Honda and he’d show up (with the Isuzu badges back on) with his registration showing it’s an Isuzu.
I keep reading the valve cover as “15 valve”, which I’m just going to assume is the true design of this engine, because that’s an awesome idea.
Symmetry is overrated.
15 valves on a V-5 engine! What could possibly go wrong?
I’m driving a 1996 Oasis now. We bought it new and it’s been very reliable as we expected since it’s essentially an Accord. We bought the Oasis as it was a few thousand less than the Odyssey. In 20 years I’ve only paid for one service – timing belt, water pump at 100,000. I’ve taken good care of it and have changed the oil, trans, plugs, brake pads, air cleaner, etc. myself. Up until a few months ago that’s all I had ever done to it. Recently I replaced the radiator and starter which didn’t take too much effort. It’s amazing to me that it still drives very well and is very tight. The AC still works perfectly and has never needed refrigerant. It is under-powered and looking well worn as the clear coat and paint are fading, but it still gets me to work.
As a very occasional NYC taxi customer I was always OK with the Oasis/Odyssey. It had good ingress/egress and was more than roomy for my 6’2′ self and a piece of luggage in the rear. The Crown Vics were not as roomy especially with the large divider until they introduced the L version.
Who remembers Joe Isuzu?
Possibly rare in Denver, but almost two years after this article was written, I still see one a month in the DC area.
My neighbor has the Honda version – awesome 355′ visibility.
Not rare – at least not here, not yet.