For six straight years since its introduction in 1989, the Geo Metro, propelled by a 55 horsepower, three-cylinder engine that would be a heck-uva power plant for a riding lawn mower, has held the top spot in one important category: fuel mileage.
With a city rating of 43 mpg and a highway rating of 48 mpg, there was really only one choice for those who wanted to get from point A to point B as cheaply as possible but without throwing their leg over a motorcycle: The tri-banger Metro was that choice.But there was a different kind of price to pay for Metro-motoring. Cramped, buzzy, easily tossed around by crosswinds, driving a Metro sometimes felt like riding a motorcycle - a bike with a roof.
Deseret News columnist Jerry Johnston, who makes a daily round-trip commute from Brigham City of 122 miles, drove a Metro for several years but finally decided gas mileage wasn't everything and traded it in on a Pontiac Grand Am. I haven't heard a single complaint from him about having to buy more gas.
In case you think I am about to tell you the 1-liter, tri-stoker Metro is no more, calm yourself. The mini-three thrashes on in the 1995 Geo Metro three-door hatchback coupe.
But this review is about its new big brother, the '95 Geo Metro LSi 4-door sedan, motivated by a 1.3 liter, 70 horsepower, four-cylinder power plant that, while not exactly robust (0-60 mph in a dozen leisurely seconds), makes merging onto I-15 a lot less problematical than before.
I want to stress that this is not a hatchback we're talking about here - a design that has fallen into disfavor with buyers despite its station wagon-like versatility. The Metro LSi sedan has a traditional trunk that is separate from the back seat.
OK, now that we have that straight, I will tell you that the rear seatback folds forward, turning it into a sort of pretend hatchback to allow hauling longer cargo. But if you never drop the seatback, then you never have to admit to its hatchling possibilities.
Tell the truth, I have become more taken each day with the Metro LSi I've been driving this past week. The car's spartan virtues tend to make the more lavish marques I have driven in recent months seem a bit overdone. After all, do we really need automatic climate control, memory seats and trip computers in our cars?
Not that the LSi is totally without creature comforts. It's the first car in its class that I've seen with a dual cassette/CD player, admittedly a $721 option but one that makes the econocar seem kind of special - not an easy trick in a car whose base price is a thrifty $9,485.
Unfortunately, it takes $3,000 more than that to get into the LSi version I've been driving. But even with a bottom line of $12,596, the LSi strikes me as a bargain in a world where $20,000 is now the average price for a new car.
For your 12-and-change, you get the cassette/CD player, air conditioning, power steering and door locks, antilock brakes, tachometer, rear window defogger and nice cloth-covered bucket seats - a well-equipped car for the money.
Geo is a sort of Chevrolet subsidiary created by GM back in the '80s to provide a single nameplate for some small cars it was building in joint ventures with Japanese firms.
The Metro is built by Suzuki (once exclusively a motorcycle manufacturer) for Chevrolet at a plant in Ontario. In the past, the Metro has been the same car as a Suzuki Swift, but no longer. Suzuki does not offer a traditional notchback (trunk) sedan in the United States. The new Metro sedan replaces the previous four-door hatchback.
As I noted last week in reviewing another econocar, the new Hyundai Accent, I am always surprised at how much fun it can be to zip around in small cars like the Metro. They give you a kind of freedom unavailable to owners of large sport-utilities and full size sedans. Tight openings in traffic become wide chasms, and narrow parking spaces can be seized as easily as a kid on a bike.
Even though all cars are smaller today than the Detroit behemoths I grew up with in the '50s, cars like the Metro and the Accent remind me again of why British sports cars and Volkswagen Beetles pushed domestic cars off center stage in the '60s. Less really is more when it comes to motoring.
Having said that, I should point out that all of the '95 Metros are longer, wider and taller than their predecessors. Also, mercifully, those 12-inch go-kart tires are no more. They have been replaced with 13-inchers, and that extra inch makes a big difference in handling quality.
Despite its larger size, the LSi weighs in at a svelte 1,940 pounds, which is probably the main reason it's so fun to drive.
The new Metro has all the latest safety suspects, including dual air bags and beefed up side-impact protection. It also has taken a cue from Suzuki's motorcycle division: The headlights come on and stay on once you release the emergency hand brake.
This is a mandatory safety feature in Canada, and there are studies that support the idea that daylight driving with lights on reduces accidents. Irrationally, though, I initially hated the lights-on feature. If the lights are going to be on I wanted it to be because I turned them on, not some mindless computer chip.
After a couple of days, though, I got used to the idea and quit trying to find ways to defeat the system. I did the same thin when seat belts were first made mandatory. Now I wouldn't leave my driveway without buckling up.