Capacious Compact Captive Imports: 1990 Geo Prizm vs 1995 Eagle Summit

Good morning! We’re continuing our Dead Brands Week with a pair of cheap little captive imports that can hold a ton of stuff and don’t use much gas. They’re both manuals, they’re both in good mechanical shape, and you could buy both of them for half the price of yesterday’s cheaper option. How does that sound?

We took a look at two rear-wheel-drive sports cars yesterday, one from Pontiac and one from Scion. It sounds like the visual modifications on both cars turned a lot of you off, but the consensus seemed to be that the Pontiac Solstice was easier to return to its original form, and less likely to have led a hard life. It took an easy win over the FR-S.

I’d take the Solstice as well, because the boy-racer aspect of the Scion turns me off. All those sharp angles and bits sticking out just don’t do it for me. I like the Solstice’s rounded shape, the fairings on the trunk lid behind the headrests, and the fact that its hood opens like a Triumph Spitfire’s. I’d be much happier seeing it in the garage every morning than I would the Scion.

Every once in a while, I come across two ads for cars that have a lot of weird parallels. Today’s choices not only both fit in my theme for the week, but they’re both the same price, roughly the same size, in similar condition, and even have similar photos in the ads – uncannily similar, like both have photos of service manuals in the trunk, and both include a shot of the spare tire. It’s the most even matchup we’ve had in a while, actually. Let’s check them out.

1990 Geo Prizm Hatchback – $2,000

Engine/drivetrain: 1.6 liter dual overhead cam inline 4, five-speed manual, FWD

Location: Converse, TX

Odometer reading: 149,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives well

It seems strange that Geo, a marque that practically defined cheap small cars in the 1990s, only existed for eight years. Created by Chevrolet to distinguish its captive imports from its home-grown products, Geo was new on the scene, then ubiquitous, and then it vanished. And these days, most of the cars themselves have vanished as well. They were all pretty good little cars, but inexpensive cars tend to get treated as disposable. These first-generation Prizms were everywhere for fifteen or twenty years, but this is the first one I’ve seen for sale in quite a while.

All of Geo’s cars were designed by Japanese companies: Isuzu, Suzuki, and Toyota. The Prizm was a Toyota Sprinter, a Corolla variant we never got with a Toyota badge. It’s powered by the same 4A-FE four-cylinder engine as the Corolla, and in this case a five-speed manual transmission. It’s a rock-solid reliable drivetrain, even if it’s not the most exciting thing to drive. This one has had a whole list of repairs and maintenance done in the past year, and with only 149,000 miles on its odometer, it’s probably only halfway through its useful life.

It has held up well inside, it looks like. The Chevy-badged floor mats and steering wheel cover are ironic, since GM created Geo to distance this car from Chevy. Its seatbelts are weird; in 1990, passive restraints were required in passenger cars, but instead of a driver’s side airbag or motorized shoulder belts, Geo (and Toyota, for the Corolla) chose to make shoulder belts that attached to the door, and were meant to stay buckled all the time. You open the door, and the belt extends to let you in. No one did that, of course, so in practice it just meant you had to fasten a lap belt and a shoulder belt separately.

This is the rarely-seen hatchback version of the Prizm. It’s a bit of an awkward design, but it’s massively more practical than the sedan. The paint is dull and faded, but it’s straight, and I don’t see any rust. The cheap window tint is unfortunate, but I suppose in the Texas sun it was necessary. It also has one of those aftermarket pop-up sunroofs, which is another relic from the past.

1995 Eagle Summit DL Wagon – $2,000

Engine/drivetrain: 1.8 liter overhead cam inline 4, five-speed manual, FWD

Location: Hyattsville, MD

Odometer reading: 222,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives well

The Eagle nameplate came along after Chrysler’s purchase of American Motors in 1987, as a way to integrate AMC’s products into Chrysler. Jeep was the real prize of this acquisition, of course, but dealerships couldn’t just sell Jeeps, and Chrysler had some obligations to fulfill with Renault out of the deal, so Eagle was born. To fill in the gaps in the model range, Chrysler turned to its old partner Mitsubishi. The Eagle Summit Wagon was a rebadged Mitsubishi RVR, also sold by Mitsubishi as the Expo LRV.

The Summit Wagon is powered by a 1.8 liter Mitsubishi 4G93 four-cylinder engine and a five-speed manual. It has a lot of miles on it, but it’s a one-owner car, and the seller has maintenance records going all the way back. It has passed a Maryland safety inspection, which I can tell you is no mean feat. I had to do several hundred dollars in repairs on one of our cars to get it to pass, and I thought it was in fine shape. If this one has received a clean bill of health from an inspection station, I’m sure it’s ready to rock.

The interior is in good condition, especially for the mileage. I see a little wear and tear, but nothing that would put me off. In fact, it looks like only the driver’s seat has seen any use; the passenger’s seat and the rear bench seat both look practically new. It has manual crank windows, but according to the window sticker, which the seller has thoughtfully provided, it has a “Preferred Equipment Package” that includes power locks and air conditioning. However, the seller says the A/C “runs rough,” whatever that means, and two new power lock actuators are included, which leads me to believe that they don’t work.

Eagle called this a wagon, but it’s really more of a tiny minivan. It has a sliding door on the passenger’s side like a van, and a taller roof than most station wagons. With the rear seat folded down, it looks like there’s a ton of room in back. It does have a little rust on it, but obviously not enough to make it fail inspection. The paint isn’t great, but the color is fantastic. Why can’t we have purple cars anymore?

These both look like good little beaters to me, and the sort of car that’s sorely missed in the market today. When did frugality stop being a virtue? We need a brand like Geo these days, selling honest, inexpensive cars that aren’t pretending to be upscale. Oh well, at least if you look hard enough, you can find them used. Which one of these appeals to you?