Although I’ll admit they don’t get my blood pumping quite like the rear drive, DeLorean-raped-by-a-Scirocco, super Giugiaro-ey design, the second gen Impulses were still very cool cars.
For the 1990 model, Isuzu really did step things up to try and make the new car better than the previous one. GM held their newly acquired Lotus engineers at gunpoint and forced them to build Isuzu a better handling suspension setup than what was on the old car. All wheel drive was now offered, and the turbo model was up 20 horses, although it still only manged to crank out 160 of them.
The exterior styling of the car is pretty interesting. Basically, Isuzu was trying to make the car look as European as they could, and I think they did a pretty good job at that. The headlights definitely have a distinctive look to them.
I don’t know how many Impulses were sold in this wagonback style, but I would have to imagine they made up a fairly low percentage of the car’s sales. According to Wikipedia, there were only 2,300 Impulses still registered as of 2010, making this car a pretty rare sight. I think it’s funny that this particular car not only tows something, it does it with enough regularity that the owner has actually bothered to install a permanent connector for the trailer lights. Poor car. I feel especially sorry for the this car because I know the turbo motor was only offered on the coupe, so this thing must be doing some real struggling anytimepretty much anything is put behind it. As much as I hate to think about such a cool car being abused, I also love to see one actually being used, so I still feel OK about it though.
I just hope the owner’s got the stock wheels stored somewhere safe.
These are the few times that I love how everyone not from Arizona is attracted here almost magnetically, such as it’s original residents are in turn repelled away. It makes more room for things like this.
Let’s be honest. There are two kinds of people in this world. The kind who specifically chose the car they drive and those who did not. I’m not talking about people buying their dream cars here. I just mean, you either bought your car because you liked it, or you have you car because it was given to you, traded to you, sold for a good deal, or you were tricked into buying it. It’s not hard to differentiate the two types of people. There are certain cars that when you see them driving, you just know the owner knows what he’s doing. Not just the obvious ones, like Corvettes or Mustangs, those are givens, I’m talking about the Omni GLH’s, Syclones, XR4Ti’s, Lightnings, Mustang SVOs, Spirit R/Ts, or pretty much any pre 2000’s import with a factory turbo. There are so many others, I can’t possibly list them all in this post. (I think I will make a post in the future listing them all though) But I smile every time I see one. You just know someone bought the car on purpose. And I like that. There are quite a few cars that are pretty cool but can definitely go either way though. Sometimes a person (usually an older person) will walk into a dealership knowing which car they want but unaware of the specific model they will end up with before showing up at the dealer. I like to imagine them quickly responding to which trim package they want by impatiently blurting out “the best one” which was interpreted by the salesman as “the most expensive one”. This probably accounts for most of the Taurus SHOs and Regal GS’s that are around today. So maybe the cars were not purchased by someone who had done a ton of research, and they might belong in sort of a grey area but I still include them with the “own their car on purpose” group.
That brings me to the other type of people. I mean seriously, what kind of young person would choose to drive a Saturn? Or a fucking Corolla? Or even a Civic, for that matter? I know there are people who don’t care at all about cars or what they drive and that’s fine. These types of vehicles are for them. But what about all the “car guys” driving all these shitbox cars? The cars were given to them by someone, right? Maybe it’s just my way of rationalizing something that I am unable to comprehend. I have to assume they had no choice in the matter because who in the FUCK would rather spend more to own a Scion than they would have spent on an LS2 GTO? Every week at the Pavilions, and probably every other type of automotive gathering across the country, you see countless people who genuinely seem to be proud to own something that sucks and is ugly. I know it sounds mean, but come on dude, do you really love that ugly four door Integra? Was that your dream car for years and now you can’t believe you own one and every day is exciting and you can’t wait to wake up in the morning so you can look out the window at your beautiful four door Integra in the driveway? If the answer is yes, let me offer you some advice. Start having better dreams. If the answer is no, then stop pretending you love your car, get a razor blade and some windex, lose the stupid fucking sticker, put the piece of shit on Craigslist, and get something you actually want. It’s the funniest thing, you never see “I heart” stickers on anything cool. Probably because the owners aren’t trying to convince anyone (or themselves) of anything.
A side note: when did all these Honda dorks start getting all elitist and only referring to their cars by their chassis designations? Especially the hatchback guys. I’m so sick of seeing EG and EK on everything from stickers to Craigslist ads, to Google search suggestions. Is it really that uncool these days to just say what year, make, and model the car is? How did we ever get by before we realized Honda was naming each generation of their cars something different? Holy shit, other companies are doing it too?! Wait till they realize they can decode their VINs. It’s going to blow their minds.
Anyways, I could ramble on for 738 MORE words if you’d like, but I think I could sum this whole thing up with Photoshop. And a bunch more words.
I hung out with my Dad the other day and decided to take pictures of his pride-and-joy 1978 International Loadstar 1600. The beautiful thing about International trucks is that they’re very simple and no-nonsense in their design. Down to the VIN. I remember getting the insurance policy going on this thing and arguing with the lady that I wasn’t short a few numbers on the VIN.
The truck was originally owned by the USAF and as a result is in surprisingly good condition. And yes, I laugh at my Dad’s “seat cushion” everytime I get in to drive it. Happy Father’s Day, Dad.
I actually kind of like the idea of it, but seriously, I’ve seen actual boats that look less like boats than this truck does with that thing on the bed. It’s just weird.
My department just hired someone to work alongside me part-time. His name is Regeno, and this this is his daily-driven 1966 Impala. It’s currently powered by a 250 cubic-inch L6 through a 3 speed, column-shifted manual. Or “three-on-the-tree” for those of you that are in the know. It’s a work-in-progress and I hope these pictures show how much potential this car has. Also included is a video of it driving away for those of you that were curious what a 250 L6 sounded like with a chambered muffler. Enjoy the gallery below!
