Rusty But Trusty

Recently departed Isuzu (if you didn’t notice, they left North America in 2009) was most recently known for producing a range of SUVs and trucks running from the boring to the weird, but from the 1970s to the 1990s, they were involved in the production of passenger cars, including some fairly interesting models like the Impulse/Piazza. As with many other manufacturers, they jumped on the turbocharging bandwagon, even with their T-platform car, the I-Mark. You can find this 1988 Isuzu I-Mark Turbo sedan in Lompoc, CA with bidding at $560 and 1 1/2 days to go, or a Buy-it-Now price of $2300.

Check out the paint job and those miniature Daytons – those probably exceeded the purchase price of the car by themselves. It almost looks like the airbrush painter was trying to emulate the structure inside the car’s exterior panels. The car’s styling (not stylin’, the original factory styling) should remind you at once of the Saab 9000 and the Hyundai Excel, as all were designed by Giugiaro. And if you squint, you could even imagine a shrunken-down Lancia Thema sedan.

Just you wait, because you haven’t yet seen this car’s pieces de resistance – a pure 1980s Momo steering wheel ripped out of an AMG Mercedes, crushed velour fabrics, and a controller that lets you know this baby can bounce. Not only that, the useless rear seat has been ripped out in favor of a giant box with 4 12″ subwoofers and 2 amps. How many people have lost their hearing in this thing? Oh, that’s right, only two, because we dumped the back seat.

Here’s the engine that gets this whole mess moving – adding a turbo gave a useful and fun boost to 110hp. That’s over 50% more than the stock 70hp engine! And for a relatively high-mileage car, the engine compartment is remarkably tidy. Speaking of mileage, imagine using this thing as your driver for 157,000 miles. It begs the question of how many miles were done before the conversion. For the current price, you could rock this until the novelty/joke wears off and sell it on without losing much money.

Tidy enough from this side too. For some reason, the car still has a Florida title, so you’ll want to make sure everything’s kosher to get it registered at the DMV. Then park it out front and start lowering your neighbors’ property values in a snap!

Tags: Feature, i-mark, isuzu, japanese, lowrider, sedan, turbo

This entry was posted on December 11, 2013 at 3:35 pm and is filed under Bad Ideas, Feature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.