Isuzu

Isuzu Motors is a Japanese Company that primarily focuses on larger commercial vehicles such as trucks and buses. The Company was founded in the early 1900s and launched its automobile division in 1937 but did not begin selling consumer vehicles in the U.S. until the 1980s. Isuzu has a penchant for partnering with other car companies such as Subaru, Mitsubishi, Nissan, General Motors and Honda to fill gaps in its product lineup.

In the 1990s for example, the Isuzu Impulse was a rebadged Geo Storm (from General Motors), the Isuzu Rodeo was rebadged as the Honda Passport, the Isuzu Oasis was a rebadged Honda Odyssey minivan and the Isuzu Trooper was rebadged as the Acura SLX. The 2000s brought increased collaboration with General Motors in the Isuzu Ascender (rebadged GMC Envoy) and the Isuzu i-280 / i-350, which were rebadged versions of the Chevrolet Colorado.

The Company introduced the Isuzu VehiCROSS in 1999, which was unlike anything else on the market. The VehiCROSS predated the explosive popularity of smaller and more-stylish crossovers by a decade. Ironically, Isuzu was unable to capitalize on this trend and ceased U.S. imports in early 2009.