GM, Isuzu Put Another $60 Million Into Moraine, Ohio Diesel Plant

General Motors and Isuzu announced that they will be investing $60 million in their joint venture DMAX Ltd., which makes diesel engines for heavy duty trucks. Reuters reports that thw investment in technologies at the Moraine, Ohio plant will make design changes to meet future emission regulations easier. GM says that 500 jobs will be retained due to the expenditure. DMAX has produced almost 1.6 million diesel engines since it started operations in 2000. Isuzu owns 40% of DMAX and GM owns the remaining 60% controlling interest.

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Piston Slap: Such a Trooper!

Keith writes:

Sajeev,

I am facing a problem with little real consequence, just more looking for advice. We have a third vehicle, one that isn’t really used much and was purchased for $1400 a couple years ago to serve as a backup when/if one of our primary vehicles was out of service (A 2005 Pahtfinder with 130k miles and a 1998 Rodeo 4×4 with 235k miles). It’s a 1999 Isuzu Trooper 4×4 with about 190k miles on the clock. Other than burning oil there really wasn’t anything wrong with it. Everything worked and to be honest my wife liked driving it much more than her everyday car.

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Junkyard Find: 1986 Isuzu I-Mark Hatchback

In the late 1980s, if you didn’t want to buy your Isuzu Gemini as a Geo/Chevrolet Spectrum, you could get it as a genuine Isuzu. I-Marks are (and were) very rare, though we have seen an ’87 in this series), and so this one with gigantic ISUZU badging has some historical interest for the true connoisseur of cheapo 80s hatchbacks.

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Junkyard Find: 1984 Isuzu P'up

All right, we saw one of the rarest examples of Detroito-Japanese badge-engineering of the 1980s in Sunday’s Junkyard Find— a Chrysler/Mitsubishi truck— and today we’re going to look at GM/Isuzu truck that’s a bit less uncommon (but still not something you see every day): a Chevy LUV wearing its original Isuzu badging.

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Junkyard Find: 1987 Isuzu I-Mark

North Americans bought the post-Chevette Isuzu Gemini under several marques. There was the Spectrum, sold as a Chevrolet, a Geo, and a confusing Chevrolet/Geo. In Canada, you could get a Gemini badged as a Pontiac Sunburst. And, of course, there was the Isuzu I-Mark, a destined-for-China’s-steel-industry example of which I’ve found in a San Francisco Bay Area self-service wrecking yard.

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Junkyard Find: 1989 Geo Spectrum

The Mitsubishi Sigma I found a couple weeks ago was one rare Junkyard Find, having been sold in the United States for just two model years. Today, though, we’ve got something even more obscure: an Isuzu Gemini badged with both Chevrolet and Geo emblems, available for just one year.

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Even Isuzu Wants Out Of Opel
Opel, the sick man of Europe, just can’t catch a break. Even Isuzu wants out of its current arrangements with the ailing German automaker. Just-Auto an…
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Say "As-Salamu Alaykum" To Yusuf Al-Isuzu

Isuzu is joining the “let’s flee Japan and the rising yen” bandwagon, and their latest venture involves assembling export-bound trucks in Saudi Arabia.

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Number One In Pickup Sales Per Capita? It's Not Who You Think

Well America may be the overall volume leader for pickup truck sales, the per-capita title belongs to Thailand, and they prefer a different flavor of truck as well.

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Geo Storm EV Mule, The Chevrolet Volt's Baby Daddy?

While on the Infiniti JX launch event, I met a gentleman who now works with Nissan. He had a number of interesting stories about his tenure at GM, and what it was like to work on the EV1 program, as well as the technology that he swears was the forerunner to the Chevrolet Volt.

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Because No Toy Car Collection Is Complete Without a Geo Storm GSi!

Giving gifts to 24 Hours of LeMons judges in order to ensure smooth turning of the gears of justice has been a tradition for several many years now. While jugs of quality booze remain the most common judicial bribe, keeping my liver at least semi-functional mandates that most of that stuff get passed on to track workers. Not so with bribes involving weird toy cars, however; I’ve got quite a collection of such gifts on my office bookshelves now. While I prize my Leyland P76, Nissan Prairie, and Impala Hell Project diorama, the car that now sits in the place of honor on my desk is one that I received from a Denver racer who couldn’t wait for the B.F.E. GP next month and came by Chez Murilee with this lovely Detroito-Tokyo icon of the early 1990s.

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GM And Isuzu Want To Rekindle Old Tie-Up

Here some background on the GM/Isuzu tie-up. Japanese wire services such as The Nikkei [sub] and Jiji report that GM approached Isuzu and “informally proposed acquiring a stake” in the Japanese truck maker. The source is an unnamed executive of Isuzu.

According to The Nikkei [sub], GM and Isuzu will start negotiations in early May for a roughly 10 percent share. If the negotiations are successful, Isuzu President Susumu Hosoi and GM CEO Dan Akerson could meet this summer to sign the agreement.

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GM and Isuzu In Bed Again?
Junkyard Find: 1996 Honda Passport

Some examples of badge engineering are ridiculous yet wonderful, others made a lot of sense for both companies… and some just make you clutch your head in dismay. The Honda Passport is the clutch-your-head type.

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Junkyard Find: 1990 Geo Storm GSi

When you think about cheap factory hot rods of the early 1990s, do you think of the Geo Storm GSi? Probably not— the Isuzu-built Storm has been nearly forgotten by now— but the GSi had some pretty impressive performance numbers. How about 130 horsepower in a 2,392-pound car?

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  • Ronin It's one thing to stay tried and true to loyal past customers; you'll ensure a stream of revenue from your installed base- maybe every several years or so.It's another to attract net-new customers, who are dazzled by so many other attractive offerings that have more cargo capacity than that high-floored 4-Runner bed, and are not so scrunched in scrunchy front seats.Like with the FJ Cruiser: don't bother to update it, thereby saving money while explaining customers like it that way, all the way into oblivion. Not recognizing some customers like to actually have right rear visibility in their SUVs.
  • MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
  • 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Same as the Land Cruiser, emissions. I have a 1985 FJ60 Land Cruiser and it’s a beast off-roading.
  • CanadaCraig I would like for this anniversary special to be a bare-bones Plain-Jane model offered in Dynasty Green and Vintage Burgundy.