1998 Isuzu Amigo V-6 Is Younger at Coronary heart

From the May 1998 issue of Car and Driver.

“An Amigo? That’s a high-school kid’s car,” said senior editor Smith before he climbed into our Copper Orange Mica test car, a 205-hp V-6-pow­ered, five-speed, four-wheel-drive, two­-door hot-rod trucklet priced at $19,795. The grin that stretched across his face after a test drive suggested that the new Amigo, which went on sale in March, is no longer a kid’s car.

Two events gave the previous Amigo its youthful reputation. First, it was highly affordable. In 1989, a base four-wheel­-driver cost less than $13,000. That attribute partially remains, as a rear-drive model costs $15,440 today. “Seventy per­cent of Generation X would like a sport-ute, but they can’t afford $25,000,” explained Steve Kerho, Isuzu’s national brand manager.

Second, Isuzu spent hardly any money promoting the Amigo—the car had to sell itself from the moment it entered the U.S. market in 1989 until it departed our market at the end of 1994. Hence, the Amigo was sold almost entirely by word-of-mouth from kid to kid. A single TV ad promoted the car’s debut, and later that year, just one print ad ran in magazines. And that was it. Still, a total of 48,651 Amigos were sold­—a figure that likely set a record for market­ing cost per unit. If Isuzu aimed blind­folded, it definitely hit a youthful, enthusiastic target.

This time around, lsuzu has bigger plans for the Amigo, starting with an optional V-6 engine. The new Amigo, with the 3.2-liter DOHC V-6 engine it shares with the larger Rodeo, gets to 60 mph in eight seconds flat. There isn’t a cheaper sport-ute that will get there any quicker. And that’s just a tenth of a second slower than Ford’s four-wheel-drive Explorer Sport three-door, equipped with a 205-hp SOHC V-6 and big tires, for $26,595. The new Amigo is faster, too, than its closest rival, the Jeep Wrangler Sport, with its 181-hp inline six-cylinder. As you would imagine, the V-6 Amigo runs all over the four-cylinder mini-SUVs, being more than a second quicker to 60 mph than even the Subaru Forester, which itself handily out­runs the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4.

Base Amigos come with a 130-hp 2.2-liter four-cylinder made in Australia, which is also available in the Rodeo. It makes only 10 more horses than the old Amigo’s 2.6 churned out, so don’t expect the four-cylinder version to hit 60 mph much faster than the old model’s 15.3-second time. The only transmission choice for now is a five-speed manual; later in the year, an automatic will turn up.

The new Amigo is actually a Rodeo that is 15 inches shorter. It benefits from the latest Rodeo’s lighter, stronger chassis and its rack-and-pinion steering, which replaces a trucklike recirculating-ball box. The suspension is updated like the Rodeo’s, with coil springs and a live rear axle located by five links. Isuzu anticipates selling 20,000 new Amigos each year, and all will be built in Lafayette, Indiana. Some 2000 right-hand-drive models will be exported to Japan annually. Isuzu expects that about 50 percent of the Amigos it builds in Hoosier-land will be equipped with four-wheel drive. A dash-mounted button engages the front hubs and the transfer gear “on the fly,” and a lever selects high or low range—just like you’ll find in the Rodeo.

On first sight, the Amigo is short and tough-looking, and it shares the grille and headlights of the Rodeo. Inside, the instru­ment panel is identical to the Rodeo’s, although Isuzu says the majority of Amigos will likely have price-lowering manual windows, mirrors, and locks. There is a fabric soft top over the rear seat, with side and rear windows made of plastic. A side-opening rear tailgate has the spare bolted to it, and a roll bar provides the anchor points for the rear-seat shoulder belt (the rear bench has a center lap belt). There are two handy, covered cargo bins on top of the rear wheel wells.

To enjoy more open air, you first unzip the side and rear windows, which are attached with large zipper and hook-and-loop fasteners. The zippers, however, are on the outside of the windows, making unauthorized entry a simple procedure, even when the car is locked. Next, you unclip two latches and the top folds back in seconds. A hard-top model will be avail­able by summer, but to save costs, the removable rear top section was not designed to be retrofitted on soft-top cars.

Other areas where cost cutting is noticeable are the unpainted front and rear bumpers. We counted six empty switch blanks on the dashboard of our four-wheel-­drive test car, which tips off drivers that a lot of equipment may be missing. Or it could appeal to do-it-yourselfers who want to add lights, compressors, a winch, or other equipment requiring switch spaces. It hasn’t been entirely stripped, however: There are two 12-volt power outlets in the dash and one in the cargo area. “Our research shows buyers perceive the cheap sport-utilities as toys. We added more utility to continue to appeal to the entry-­level sport-utility buyer,” says Isuzu’s Kerho.

On the road, the Amigo V-6 is sub­stantially quieter than its predecessor, which at 70 mph rang your ears with a 75-dBA sound level. The new car measured 70 dBA, even with the rear fabric roof flap­ping slightly in the wind. The new Amigo’s highway livability is better than the previous, poorly insulated Amigo’s; the old model lacked carpet, trim, and sound-deadening material in the rear-seat area.

The steering of the new Amigo is light, and it remains so even when spinning the wheel quickly in opposite-lock maneu­vers—an action that doesn’t beat the power-assist pump. The P245/70SR-16 Bridgestone Dueler 684 tires provided a grippy 0.74 g of lateral acceleration on pavement. That’s a lot better than the 0.69 g the old Amigo generated on its bigger light-truck tires. The all-disc brakes stopped the Amigo in 191 feet—a reason­able distance for an off-roader.

Off-road, the new car is surprisingly capable and comfortable. Our veteran Nepal-experienced off-road test driver said the Amigo ran down a rutted rural road better than did a Rodeo, the body structure of which seemed to shake more. The ride of the Amigo was better, despite its shorter wheelbase, which in theory promises more bucking motion.

The new Amigo’s passenger-car tires are a bit smaller in diameter than the orig­inal Amigo’s 31-by-10.5-inch light-truck tires. That contributes to the reduction in approach angle of the new Amigo, from 40 degrees to 32.5 degrees. But the departure angle is 2.5 degrees greater than the 1994 model’s 27 degrees. Fitting larger tires would likely affect the new car’s ride negatively, but larger tires would better resist abrasion and punctures from rocks.

The smaller tires also allow more steering lock for a tighter 34.1-foot turning circle, despite the new model’s 5.2-inch­-longer wheelbase. In weighing the pluses and minuses, Isuzu chose the smaller tires.

There’s a future for fun two-door sport-­utilities, Isuzu believes. “This won’t be the last of that kind of [two-door] configura­tion you’ll see,” said Kerho. Indeed, in Japan, a two-door styling experiment called the VehiCROSS sold all 2000 units of a limited production in two months after it was introduced at the New York auto show in March 1997. It was designed by the Isuzu Tech Center in Europe on a body 5.3 inches shorter than the Amigo’s, and it was powered by a modified 3.2-liter, 212-hp V-6. It sold for about $23,000 in Japan.

Physics denies many oversize five-door sport-utility vehicles the kind of nimble handling, spunky acceleration, and driving fun that you get with an Amigo. The fun seems to make up for the lack of rear-seat space and the dearth of doors. Neverthe­less, we managed to fit two adults and a one-year-old, a three-year-old, and a five­-year-old into our test Amigo, along with two child seats, a collapsible playpen, a folding high chair, and a folding eight­-wheel stroller. It was perhaps three times the struggle it would have been in a Dodge Caravan, and the youngster paraphernalia did block much of the rear view. However, the high perch gave the infant, who was in the center rear-seat position, a view out the front windshield that captured his atten­tion and kept him silent throughout a long drive on broken pavement and dirt roads. We’ll gladly take the Amigo’s perfor­mance over the additional space of a larger, less-fun sport-ute or minivan.

The new Amigo remains the nearest competitor to the Jeep Wrangler, which is still the popularity leader in the small­-sport-utility market, as well as a bench­mark in off-road ability. Even with a hard top and all-glass windows, a six-cylinder Wrangler is a few hundred dollars less. However, the Amigo is more pleasant to drive on everyday roads.

Counterpoint

Buying a miniature sport-ute is a little like buying garbage cans because of the way they look. I mean, what’s the point of driving a trucklet if it won’t carry all my garden implements to Larry’s Mower Service? Well, there is a point, as I discovered in the woods last night. Off-road, the Amigo feels as rugged and sure-footed as a truck (but with a better ride), unlike a couple other tiny utes I could mention (whose initials begin with CR-V and RAV4). And even if the Amigo is short on ute, it’s long on sport. The V-6 is fast to rev, smooth, and potent—rem­iniscent of the drivetrain in my beloved Nissan Pathfinder. —John Phillips

If I’m ever lucky enough to move to Arizona, Hawaii, or Florida—where the sun is bright and the air is warm—I’d go for an Amigo. I like the Amigo because I can take it off-road on a mountain-bike or snowboarding trip, I can take it to the beach with a surfboard sticking out the open roof, and I can zip around town without getting beat up like I would in a Wrangler. The only thing that bothers me about the Amigo is the mammoth C-pillar, which creates a huge blind spot on both sides of the car. Besides that, the Amigo pro­vides an uncommon combination of versatility, refinement, and fun. —Bradley Nevin