When your small car gets 22 MPG, is that a bragging point? Apparently so, because the seller of this 1991 Isuzu Impulse RS Turbo (go here if the ad disappears) put that Country Squire-esque mileage figure right in the headline. And when you're shopping for a car, what do you want to know about it? Running condition, maybe what kind of shape the interior's in? Nope, you need to know the bore and stroke of the engine... and this seller gives you just that! So here we have an AWD turbocharged Isuzu, complete with bright blue console trim and pillar-mounted gauges. The photographs were apparently taken at the Nevada Test Site with an experimental neptunium-core fission blast going off in the background, so it's a bit hard to make out the car... but no matter- this is a 17-year-old all-wheel-drive turbocharged car from a company that's even at this moment frantically packing up to leave the country before the credit-card bills come due, so you know you're in for some challenges. Just picture the fun you'll have breaking parts entering hyperspace in this sucker after you jack up the boost!

We all know that lots of exclamation points in a car ad indicates sincerity, but how do you indicate that a car's price is really, really good? Why, you put 16 dollar signs in the headline, of course! The seller lets you know right off that a 1994 Isuzu P'Up (go here if the ad disappears) is "a hard truck to find," and it's going to get a helluva lot harder now that Joe Isuzu is being stuffed into a shipping container and sent back to Japan. This truck has been rigged with airbag suspension, shaved doors "with poppers" (we assume the seller is not referring to the disco-era amyl nitrate variety here), and a Weber carb in place of the factory fuel injection. Since any or all of these mods could be total butcher jobs, you might be in for a few surprises. The AC works, but not the heater (no green liquid gushing out of the dash... as far as you know), and a new stereo system might be "thrown in" if the price is right. But remember folks, the seller is firm about the terms of the deal: "i dont want your junk i need a ride and can not accept payments but will negotiate price."

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Though not spoken of with the same reverence as Starions and Supras, the Impulse did have a lot going for it. The design comes from Giorgetto Giugiaro, who some say recycled the design from the next generation Scirocco that was never to be. It also had decent performance, including a turbo version with 140 horsepower and 166 lb.-ft. of torque. The cockpit of the Impulse looked futuristic to the 7-year-old me, with more buttons and knobs than a 747. Looking at pictures now it looks a little ridiculous.

In 1990, the second generation Impulse arrived with little fanfare. Built on the same R-body platform as the Geo Storm, the "lotus tuned" suspension didn't change the fact that the general characteristics of the first generation had changed. Unfortunately, the car was also switched from RWD to FWD. Gee, when has that happened before?

My dad's Impulse was a pre-Lotus tuned, non-turbo Impulse so the chances are it is sitting in a scrap heap somewhere, which is too bad as the car is now part of the history of a failed attempt at winning in the North American market. We also had an old I-Mark, but I'd rather not remember that. [For a great history of the Impulse check out the Isuzu Performance Impulse Page]

Let's face it, Rover's cars never sold well in the United States (for reasons we really don't need to explain here), so when it came time to sell the Rover 800 over here, the marketing suits at British Leyland figured they'd just call it something else. And so it was that the Sterling was born; with Honda V6 power and British good looks, it looked like a can't-possibly-miss; no oil leakage, no clattery tractor-engine sounds, no dullsville Japanese-sedan styling. Yes, the Sterling was quite a car, and this 1989 Sterling 827 SL, available for the farthingly low asking price of a cool grand, could soon be gracing your garage. Now, don't be intimidated by the British electrical system; after all, the reliability of the Honda running gear is so profound that it emits a force field of Japanese quality that actually prevents problems in unrelated systems! Would we make this stuff up? And that bad talk going around town about poor build quality and corrosion? Hogwash! Though the description on this car is a bit sparse...

Was there ever an Isuzu that was cool enough to be a Project Car Hell car? Most emphatically, yes! The Impulse with the "Handling By Lotus" option is such a car. This '89 Impulse has rear-wheel-drive, Giorgetto Giugiaro styling, and the aforementioned suspension tuning done by none other than the road-gripping gurus at Lotus. It's got the Chex wheels, a somewhat new clutch (though you might consider asking to see the receipt), and... we're not sure what else. Sure, Isuzu never really measured up to the quality standards of Honda, Nissan, and Toyota, but it can't be that bad. Can it?

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