An off-road arms race has been growing over the past dozen years or so. Ford wants you to get behind the wheel of an F-150 Raptor R or its Bronco. Stellantis sees you putting the pedal to the metal in a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 392 or laughing like a James Bond villain in a Ram 1500 TRX. Off-road-spec vehicles are in vogue and many automakers are delivering the goods, or just slapping cladding on a crossover and calling it a day. Back in 1997, Isuzu released a funky off-roader that was perhaps too far ahead of its time. The Isuzu VehiCROSS was weird and packed full of technology that would make it capable even today, 26 years later. Yet, because of the way it was built, few hit the road anywhere in the world.
Last time on Holy Grails, reader Jeff H took us down memory lane back to the early aughts. The Lincoln LS stunned the automotive press in how much it wasn’t like your average Lincoln. This wasn’t grandma’s wingback chair with four wheels bolted to it. No, the Lincoln LS was designed to make buyers of European sport sedans think twice with its good handling, understated looks, and just enough luxury. At launch, it was Lincoln’s stiffest car and its first car in 48 years to get a manual transmission. Oh yeah, a handful of buyers specced their Lincoln LS with a V6 and a manual transmission.
Today’s grail takes us in a different direction. This vehicle isn’t a factory hot rod or a special version of a common car. Many of the cars featured on Holy Grails have been rare versions of cars otherwise produced in hundreds of thousands, if not millions of units. Today’s grail is an entire model and that’s because, in this vehicle’s entire run, fewer than 6,000 units were produced. This is the Isuzu VehiCROSS, and it’s a 4×4 ahead of its time.
This suggestion comes from reader tacotruckdave, and he has recommended the VehiCROSS as a grail for months. I think it’s time that we shine a light on it.
Isuzu Used To Be Pretty Wild
If you’re in America, you probably know Isuzu best for its commercial trucks. An “Isuzu NPR” truck may have even delivered appliances or furniture to your residence. As a car enthusiast, you may remember some of Isuzu’s automotive fare like the Ascender SUV, Isuzu i-Series pickup, or perhaps the Geo Storm. Isuzu no longer builds cars, but it does construct crossovers and pickup trucks in other markets. That wasn’t always the case and the company’s history goes back over a century.
I’ll let Isuzu take the mic:
Our roots go back to 1916 in Japan. That is when Tokyo Ishikawajima Shipbuilding and Engineering Co., Ltd. and Tokyo Gas and Electric Industrial Co. initiated plans for automobile production. Three years later in 1919, Japan’s first truck was built. That was the beginning of a series of industry firsts that continues today.
In the U.S., the very first Isuzu truck arrived at the Port of Jacksonville, Florida on November 10, 1984. This was the KS22 truck with an 87-hp naturally aspirated diesel engine mated to a manual transmission. The Isuzu low cab forward design introduced U.S. business owners to a smarter way to work with trucks that are maneuverable, offer a low cost of ownership and deliver remarkable durability. After two short years, Isuzu trucks became the best-selling low cab forward trucks in America – an accolade that still holds true today.
What Isuzu’s American arm doesn’t say is that in 1918, the conglomerate joined forces with Britian’s Wolseley Motors Limited. Tokyo Ishikawajima Shipbuilding and Engineering Co. Ltd gained the rights to build Wolseley cars in East Asia. The first, a Woleseley Model A-9, was completed in December 1922.
The name “Isuzu” came up in 1934 with a truck that the company built to Ministry of Trade and Industry standards. In 1937, Tokyo Automobile Industries Co. Ltd. was established. Isuzu says that this is its predecessor company and it didn’t get the Isuzu name until after World War II. The Isuzu name translates to “fifty bells” and the company was named after the Isuzu River.
Let’s fast forward to the 1980s. As Motor Trend notes, Isuzu was picking up slower than its competition. Marques like Toyota, Nissan, and Honda hit the market with strong competition. Isuzu, riding in the same strong Japanese economy as everyone else, decided to dream big and weird.
This meant building cars like the Asso di Fiori, also known as the Piazza and Impulse.
It was a Giorgetto Giugiaro-designed wedge-shaped rear-wheel-drive hatch that Isuzu claims came with “the world’s first memory tilt steering, variable multi-adjustable seats with quick-adjust mechanism, semi-tractable headlamps, digital meters and a satellite switch.”
Isuzu’s exploits in the 1980s got even wilder and included the 3.5-liter P799WE V12 that was meant to race in Formula 1. That reportedly 750 HP engine was planted in a Lotus 102C experimental racer, but it was six seconds slower than the Honda piloted by Ayrton Senna. Isuzu tried pitching the engine to McLaren for the F1 hypercar, but it declined, looking for an automaker with a racing pedigree.
The Grail
In the 1990s, Isuzu continued its dream of weird and innovative vehicles and that brings us to our grail, the Isuzu VehiCROSS. Reader tacotruckdave owns one of these and has been championing this 4×4 for months in our comments. I’ll splice a few of his comments together:
Instead of picking one of the usual suggested sleds I will suggest an Isuzu Vehicross. From 97 -2001 a 250hp motor, borg warner 4wd system, style that looks modern even today, how about a car way ahead of its time that without help competes against cars 20 years newer.
Rarer than 99% of your Holy Grails you push. The best car ever built, advanced before its time, better style and performance than any Jeep.
Holy Grail at 15,000 for one year? The Isuzu Vehicross had a 5 year run with a third less production at 10,000. Where are the Isuzus? Anyone ever think about Joe Isuzu anymore? Noooooo.
As Hagerty writes, while just 5,958 VehiCROSS SUVs were ever built between 1997 and 2001, the rarity of these vehicles wasn’t because nobody wanted them. In 1993, Isuzu unveiled the VX concept. In typical concept fashion, the VX was a bold, futuristic off-roader that you might think wouldn’t ever come into production. But this is Isuzu and the company had a way to bring the wild concept into production without too many changes.
To get the VehiCROSS into production quickly, Isuzu brass decided to use some strict cost-cutting methods. A team of 15-20 people was tasked with getting the concept into production in about half of the time it would normally take.
In doing so, the team adopted an inexpensive method to develop the vehicle quickly. Instead of using a cast iron die that would have cost around $1.5 million and four months to make, they used a ceramic die, which cut costs by about half or more and took a little over two months to make. As Motor Trend notes, a typical vehicle took 20 to 30 dies, so this would save a ton of cash.
Unfortunately, using ceramic tooling dies came at a disadvantage as they wear out much quicker than cast iron dies. Thus, the VehiCROSS was always going to be a limited-production vehicle and Isuzu limited production to 2,400 units a year until the dies wore out. Isuzu expected to get two years of production before the dies weren’t able to be used anymore, but Isuzu managed to trickle them out for three model years in the United States. Production started in 1997 in Japan with the States getting them for the 1999 model year for a starting price of $28,900 ($52,917 today). When production ceased in 2001, America gobbled up 4,153 units.
What You Get With An Isuzu VehiCROSS
Right from the jump, the first thing you’ll notice about the VehiCROSS is its funky design. I mean, even the name is sort of weird, given how Isuzu styled it. The VehiCROSS isn’t going to win any beauty pageants but it has a design that keeps you staring at it. It’s one of those vehicles with so many details that you may learn something new every time you take a peek.
The cladding is likely to be one of the first parts that grab your attention. The VehiCROSS has cladding so bulbous I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that it could be amphibious. It might be unsightly for some, but I dig it. Anyone who has taken their 4×4 down a tight trail knows that trees and shrubs love to leave pinstripes and little dings all over your bodywork. In this case, your plastic pontoon cladding is going to take most of the hits.
Cladding aside, there are other neat design elements to look at from the fanged grille and the ribbing on the doors to the prominent spare tire carrier on the back. Since this is ultra-weird, however, the spare tire is actually on the inside of the door. I’d say the VehiCROSS has an endearing design.
Perhaps even cooler than the funky design is how innovative the rest of the VehiCROSS is. Sitting in the engine bay is a 3.5-liter 6VE1 V6 producing 215 HP and 230 lb-ft torque.
That’s driving a four-speed automatic through Isuzu’s advanced Torque-On-Demand automatic 4×4 system. Developed in a partnership with Borg-Warner, this system uses 12 input sensors and a software map to try to detect slippage before it occurs. Under normal driving conditions, the system sends power to the rear wheels. When the system detects slip, it sends power to the front axle. Inside the cabin, you get a neat display to show you what is going on. Torque-On-Demand software looks at parameters like throttle input, vehicle speed, and wheel speeds to determine if your VehiCROSS is slipping or is about to slip. The idea is to stop a loss of traction before it happens.
This kind of system would be pretty neat to hear about today, but remember, Isuzu did this 26 years ago! Of course, you also got a low range as well.
More Than Just A Great 4×4 System
Backing the four-wheel-drive system up is a suspension that features aluminum monotube shocks with external heat-expansion chambers. Isuzu marketed these shocks as nearly impossible to overheat while providing extra damping over regular shocks. You’ll find shocks like these on all sorts of off-roaders today, but as Isuzu notes, they were more for racing back then. This wasn’t a coincidence as the VehiCROSS was built to rally homologation spec. Isuzu even entered them into the 1998 running of the Dakar and the 1999 Australian Safari Rally.
All of this translated into a fantastic off-roader. Check out this excerpt from Four Wheeler Magazine’s review:
Isuzu used sophisticated remote-reservoir mono-tube gas shocks at each corner, and although that tended to stiffen overall ride quality, it didn’t take a driver long to feel the benefits. In the twisties, that means the Vehicross is probably the best-handling SUV made, save for the nearly $70,000 Mercedes ML 55 AMG. Testers loved powering this little sportster through tight switchbacks, all the while hugged in place by the super-supportive Recaro buckets.
However, it was where the pavement turned to dirt that the Vehicross really surprised. Our Trail Performance category encompasses everything from smooth dirt roads to Rubiconesque rockclimbs, and the ‘Cross won this section by a good margin. Over desert whoops, there isn’t a vehicle made that can run the speeds (with control) the ‘Cross can. Yes, you could overdrive the suspension and get into the bumpstops, but at reasonable speeds, the truck felt amazingly composed.
One may assume slow-speed, low-range four-wheeling could suffer due to the firm suspension, but that wasn’t so. The ‘Cross ramped a best-of-the-bunch 561, which is a record for an IFS-equipped 4×4. And that score, combined with the traction of the Borg-Warner Torque-On-Demand transfer case, with 2.48:1 low range and one of the tightest rear limited slips on the market, changed its nickname from space buggy to rock buggy.
Inside, the front occupants of a VehiCROSS sit in leather Recaro buckets and the overall theme is sporty. You’ll find carbon fiber trim and a leather-wrapped steering wheel to amp up the theme. Sadly, Isuzu did save some money on the interior and the dashboard is borrowed from an Isuzu Rodeo.
Despite how awesome the VehiCROSS is, it never seemed to reach the classic status that some of its contemporaries have. Buyers are willing to snatch up clean Jeep XJ Cherokees for alarming amounts of cash, yet you’ll find a VehiCROSS on your local classifieds for around $5,000. Even practically brand-new Ironman limited editions struggle to reach $20,000 on a platform like Bring a Trailer. Though, for tacotruckdave and readers like you, that means you can find a cheap and weird off-road gem.
(All Images: Isuzu, unless otherwise noted.)
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Against all odds, there are 2 of these in my neighborhood. A yellow and a white one- Owned by two separate households.
They’re parked outside. They look cool but a little buggy for my tastes.
I stopped shopping these when I figured out they didn’t have any locking hub options from the factory and were so damned rare that they were already starting to fetch a premium all of 10-15 years ago.
I love my 1999 Amigo 4×4, 5spd. It does cyclone donuts, and those are quite tasty. I bought it with the ARB 3” lift already installed. It’s similar in spec to a new 2dr Bronco. I might have to call it the Burro or something. Perhaps a personalized spare tire cover.
If just under 6000 examples can be a grail, what about the Jaguar X-Type wagon? Only 1600 were sold in the US, and Car and Driver even called them unintentional exotics.
Supposedly, you could even get an X-Type wagon with a manual transmission. And yes, it has the hood ornament 😀
Back in the day, I was one of what I assume is a very very small number of people who cross-shopped the VehiCROSS with the S2000. Had the S2000 for 12 wonderful years, but I still regret just a little bit when I see a well maintained VehiCROSS on (or off) the road,
I cross-shopped the S2000 with Wranglers, since the convertible was my primary goal.
The Vehicross was…odd. The AWD system was pretty advanced for its time, but having talked to some of the people designing AWD systems at the time it was also kinda…crap. Not for lack of trying, but for lack of refinement.
That being said, TOD has definitely come into its own and it’s a fairly common option for longitudinally mounted Part time awd vehicles to add an on-demand variable torque split option. Many Jeeps, including Wranglers have it, Most of the big truck makers have it. etc. It’s basically the same concept as the AWD in the TRX/Raptor as well.
It’s the right idea for adding 4wd Auto functionality relatively easily to vehicles that are already part time. That being said, it’s not the same as full time AWD, since its actively on-demand and not passively active.
I test drove one of these back in the day even though I wasn’t into off-roading at all. It had exactly the type of too-extreme-for-normal-people look my arty rebel personality craved. But, even though my daily driver was a hatchback, the VehiCROSS seemed suffocatingly snug to me, so I passed. Oh well.
To be clear, “suffocatingly snug” is not the same as “insufferably smug.”
I own one of these, it was a bucket list vehicle for me. I off road it and it is so good on the trails. I am in San Diego if you guys want to check it out!
I thought it maybe used the Trooper dashboard because it had more in common with the running gear of that model at the time, but in looking at pics it seems like the dash was more from the gen-1 Rodeo’s facelifted airbag interior – interesting since a new interior had gone in the gen-2 Rodeo for 1998 before this came out.
While I admired the look and just the general weirdness, back in the early 2000s it wasn’t a good value. Limited aftermarket, odd parts and service availability depending on where you lived in the US, it was enough to say ‘pass, I will buy a Wrangler/Blazer/Cherokee/other than get wrapped up in this’. I think now that’s it’s old and cheap ”fun project car!” but not sure it really rises to level of holy grail. Maybe cause it still has more limited enthusiast cred in my neck of SoCal.
Body parts are the problem. The rest is easy because of many GM parts and the Borg Warner support.
I always loved these things. I think it is a fun and unique design today as it was yesterday.
I have seen a few at off road events. I always wanted one when they were new. I was talking to one owner that said that many owners have a network to find and buy up parts of any of these they see in junkyards due to the rarity of them.
True dat the old vehicross.info site is dead but still some great ingormation on it and there is a great FB Vehicross club
I once had a neighbor that owned two of these – a blue one and a yellow one. He was a friend of a friend, and once I brought up to our mutual friend how jealous of them I was. I was then informed that the yellow one was a driver and the blue one was a glorified parts car – someone has decided to begin parting it out, and when my neighbor realized the truck was almost completely whole, he bought the whole thing outright. Apparently, he often joked that with the rarity of parts for the VehiCross only getting more rare, that broken blue one was his retirement plan.
It sure looked cross with that grill.
There is a Holy Grail version of this: The Ironman edition. I don’t remember what it did better but I’m certain there were a few upgrades beyond stickers.
Nope the only difference were decals on the car, front seats, and floor mats and it only came in white. But outside the ironman some great colors. Mica Red, Dragon Green, Proton Yellow, White, Silver, Black
“That is when Tokyo Ishikawajima Shipbuilding and Engineering Co., Ltd. and Tokyo Gas and Electric Industrial Co. initiated plans for automobile production.”
Sounds like the conglomerate that produces the “Mr. Sparkle” brand. “I will banish dirt to the land of wind and ghosts.”
He’s disrespectful to dirt!
Please tell me I’m not the only one who sees the front profile of a crab in these.
Also, yes, they were very much ahead of their time (like the Aztek…*cough*).
No it is a snake. Fangs, slanted headlights
PRAISE UPPU (BBUH)!
All things considered, the Isuzu NPR was a pretty good truck.
Hey Mercedes great article. I learned a few new things so great research. A tidbit a Convertible Vehicross shows up in the movie Total Recall.
For a glimpse of a even wilder variant, check out the way-underrated Brian DePalma movie Mission to Mars from the early 2000s – Gary Sinise drives (on earth mind you) a convertible version of it that I think was actually an Isuzu concept.
I was about to comment that there were a couple concept versions of it – the convertible was the VX-O2 (actually was on the cover of an issue of one of the car mags one month) and then there was also a 4-door VX-4 concept.
I knew I wasn’t totally misremembering that! And for my money, VX-01 would have been even more appropriate instead of Vehicross.
I put this one on the “future collectable” list any time the discussion comes up. It may never be an asset class unto itself, but it is noteworthy.
At present I only have one in Hot Wheels form, which sold far more copies than the real thing.
Other than the Vampire Front Grill, all I remember about these was being featured on Special Unit 2.
Saw one of these in FL around…. 2003? I was utterly baffled by it, completely unusual design (didn’t know the history or how close to the concept it was), unlike anything I had really seen on the street – and it looked weathered! Blew my mind, it was like a time traveller, had no idea it was a late nineties product.
Great highlight, and a truly strange vehicle. I recently saw an Ironman edition near my house in Gilbert, and even as a fan of the VehiCROSS I didn’t know that was a thing. I think unless you are of a certain age its really had to imagine just how radial this car was in it’s styling, even today it’s much more concept car looking than production model.
IIRC the interior was like neoprene, so it could be hosed out like the Element, 5 years before the Element..
It’s funny how these crazy designs look kind of normal now. I remember the 7th gen Celica being absolutely wild at the time, now it just looks like any other coupe.
It remains my favorite of the FWD Celica designs. Looks like a mini IMSA racecar.
The Vehicross is cool, even though I vaguely recall a triathlon marketing tie in and I agree with Bike Snob that a triathlon ruins a good bike ride.
Fun trivia is that Hino trucks are also a spin off from Tokyo Gas And Electric making Hino and Isuzu cousins.
Okay I’m not as much of a Vehicross enthusiast as pal Dave is, but I agree that it’s a car that deserves a redemption arc of some sort. They do look like they could’ve come off a Kia or Hyundai lot yesterday and 20+ years ago 215 horsepower was no joke. Hell the GTI made 225 until the MK8 came out and that’s more power than a lot of base luxury sedans make today. I think it’s about the same power the Boxster was making at the time as well.
Are they attractive vehicles? Absolutely not lol…but they are unique and you can’t deny that they have presence. They were way ahead of their time. But the debate here shifts to whether or not that’s a good thing…ridiculous looking, cladded, off road-ey crossovers are like every 3rd car on the road these days.
So are cars like this, the early RAV4s, the Aztec, etc. where it all started or where it all ended? It’s up to you to decide, dear commentariat.
I’m intrigued by your premise, as it seems like around this time is when SUV design evolution was branching into at least 2 distinct paths – the “hells yeah hold my beer while I climb this” look and the “it’s a car but in truck form” style.
Both of which could be seen as at least a little inauthentic – after all, Wranglers were pretty off-road capable for years prior without many of the new accoutrements we’d see at this time, and the entire concept of say a Navigator kinda strikes an odd chord, a giant trucklike thing that’s meant to do nothing trucklike.
Right, the exact formula wasn’t agreed upon yet. I’d argue we moved away and then have come back around to what we saw ~25 years ago, full circle. More crossovers are coming as AWD-only or 2WD is only some lower trims; they tout different drive modes like snow or sand (even early crossovers often had some type of center diff lock); smaller utes closer in size to the original RAV4 and CR-V are increasingly popular; an SUV is the best-selling non-pickup and places ahead of the best-selling car with both from the same make (RAV4/Camry, like Explorer/Taurus in 1995).
Even the cladding mention, there was no shortage of fender flares or 2-tone paint in the ’90s, whether you’re talking Explorer (especially Eddie Bauer), Outback, or the RAV4 or RX in between. Main difference is they were painted, but the industry was just shedding the unpainted bumper look because for years that meant base model aka cheap, and then too much cladding was too Pontiac.
By the late 2000s, cladding was minimal to none and design was much more monotone – look at the Pilot, RAV4, Rogue, Highlander of the time to name a few. Now more of it’s crept back in, partly for image, but partly as a design piece to break up what would be an expanse of sheetmetal otherwise. (Personally I don’t hate it, and IMO painted cladding on newer cars looks cheap, giving me shades of poorly-masked Maaco paint jobs even when it’s factory.)