Junkyard Find: 1993 Isuzu Stylus
There are certain milestone vehicles I have worked at checking off a personal list as I roam the junkyards of the land. The last of the Oldsmobiles or Plymouths or Pontiacs or Studebakers, for example, or the first of the Camrys or del Sols or Altimas. For at least a decade now, I've been scouring the boneyards for an example of the very last non-truck Isuzu model sold in the United States: A 1993 Stylus. Finally, success in Colorado Springs!
Yes, I've had every possible online alert set up and a big network of my readers looking out for a 1993 (or any) Stylus, and Mason of Unloved Cars of Colorado came through by tipping me off about this nearly extinct machine.
Before we take a closer look at today's Junkyard Find, we need a brief Isuzu history lesson. Isuzu first started selling vehicles here in quantity with the arrival of the Chevrolet LUV (Light Utility Vehicle) pickup, which was really an Isuzu Faster.
Isuzu opened up its own dealerships in the USA for the 1981 model year, and I-Marks went on sale next to P'up pickups. The Impulse (known as the Piazza in Japan) followed, along with the Trooper (aka Bighorn) SUV. Joe Isuzu became the most beloved liar on American television and vehicles bearing the name of a beloved Japanese river became commonplace on our roads.
The last year for the LUV was 1982, thanks to the homegrown S-10, but The General hadn't forgotten about its Japanese partners. Three years later, American Chevrolet dealers began selling the Suzuki Cultus with Sprint badges, the AE82 Toyota Corolla Sprinter with Nova badges and the Isuzu I-Mark with Spectrum badges.
Then GM created the Geo brand for vehicles made or designed by Isuzu, Suzuki and Toyota, with sales beginning for the 1989 model year. The Chevy Spectrum became a Geo for its final moments, then disappeared without a trace. For 1990, the Isuzu Gemini Coupe aka Piazza Nero aka Impulse went on sale with Geo Storm badging. There was even a wagon version!
The popularity of the commuter SUV was waxing while all this was going on, in large part thanks to the Jeep XJ Cherokee and Ford Explorer, and sales of Isuzu's trucks became much stronger than those of its cars as the 1990s dawned. By 1993, the only non-truck Isuzus left standing in the United States were the Stylus and Storm. The following year, the Isuzu lineup here was truck-only.
Troopers, Rodeos, Amigos and Pickups sold pretty well in North America during the 1990s (though the Pickup was replaced with an Hombre-badged S-10), and SUV-desperate Honda sold Isuzu-built Passports and SLXs while the Acura MDX/ Honda Pilot was being designed. Then Isuzu's American decline and fall happened quickly as our current century got rolling and the company's offerings looked increasingly antiquated.
The 2004 Axiom was the final true Isuzu model sold here; after that, the once-proud Isuzu name was reduced to being glued onto hastily rebadged Trailblazers and Colorados. In 2009, Isuzu announced that it would be departing our shores. At least Isuzu commercial trucks are still available.
Now we'll rewind back to to the early 1990s. The I-Mark faded away after 1989, leaving the Impulse as the only Isuzu-badged new car available in the United States for 1990. The Gemini entered its third generation in Japan, and that car appeared in North American Isuzu showrooms as the 1991 Stylus.
Perhaps a few Isuzu shoppers glanced at the Styluses and Impulses on their way to ask the sales staff questions about cheap financing on Troopers or Amigos, but Isuzu cars just weren't selling during the era of Operation Desert Storm. The Impulse disappeared during 1992, leaving just the Stylus. 1,762 Styluses were sold in the United States as 1993 models, including this one.
Here's what this car looked like when Unloved Cars of Colorado made its pilgrimage to the Colorado Springs U-Pull-&-Pay in early February.
I showed up less than 48 hours later and the car was in the process of being stripped clean. I'd assumed that nobody other than junkyard freaks obsessed with really obscure automotive history would have any interest in a junkyard Stylus, but I was wrong.
A pair of Colorado-based Isuzu aficionados from the online Isuzone community had swooped in and were yanking body, trim and interior parts galore off this car. It was like watching a couple of hungry vultures pluck the tastier bits off a dead raccoon, which is exactly what it looked like I was doing when I found a 1941 Plymouth Special Deluxe in the Denver Pick Your Part a while back.
They were cool about letting me work around them to shoot my photos, which was nice.
There won't be much left of this car by the time it meets the cold steel jaws of The Crusher.
Its parts will live on and thrive in this Stylus.
And this one. Yes, I am an Isuzone member now, despite having never owned an Isuzu (though I did once have a delivery job driving a diesel P'up).
The engine is a 1.6-liter SOHC straight-four, rated at 90 horsepower and 97 pound-feet. There's not much urgency among Isuzu enthusiasts for pulling powertrain parts from a junkyard Stylus, since it shares them with the much-easier-to-find Geo Storm.
The final Stylus had an MSRP of $9,599, or about $21,384 in 2025 dollars. It was a perfectly good Japanese subcompact sedan and priced competitively against such cars as the Subaru Loyale, Mitsubishi Mirage and Nissan Sentra… but Americans thought of Isuzu as a truck manufacturer by that time and Joe Isuzu had been gone for years.
Nearly 175,000 miles on the clock at the end, which is respectable for a 32-year-old economy car.
♪♫ Impulse Stylus Pickup Trooper,
Rodeos, too,
Your Isuzu dealer's got the right Isuzu for you! ♪♫
This guy is no Joe Isuzu, and comparing the Stylus to the much bigger and plusher Toyota Camry is a reach. Why not the Corolla?
The cheapest 1991 new car with a standard airbag! Now you can afford to live!
As you'd expect, the JDM commercials are much more fun. Sadly, we never got a Stylus Wagonback here.
The Gemini had a long run of fun TV advertising in its homeland.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
1993 Isuzu Stylus in Colorado wrecking yard.
[images: The Author]
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Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Hagerty and The Truth About Cars.
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WJT...... Impulse !!! Thats the car. Loved it. Good looking. Rented a Trooper once. Long Trip. Loved it. Mid size footprint. Massive inside.
My first car slots in here: '77 "Buick Opel" (aka Isuzu I-Mark). I've never seen one in Murilee's archives, and I've only ever seen a handful in the wild. Little to no enthusiast following in North America, so nearly all of them have been scrapped. But it was kind of a neat little car for the econobox that it was. Isuzu mechanicals, Opel styling, and being lightweight and RWD, I thought it would have made a fun resto-mod project, with maybe a Nissan SR20DE or Honda B16 transplant.