There was a time when a vehicle as unusual as the 2002 Isuzu Axiom would have caused traffic jams as motorists jockeyed for a better look. At mall parking lots, crowds would have gathered to ask questions.
The fact that the new for 2002 Axiom drew only an occasional glance during my week behind its two-tone leather steering wheel is testament to how blasé people have become to seeing cars on the road that only a couple of years earlier were on auto show podiums as "concept" vehicles.
The Axiom had just such a podium moment in 1999 as the ZXS concept.
Axiom is one of those hybrid or crossover vehicles that attempt to combine the attributes of a sport-utility, station wagon and minivan into a single package.
Most of the other manufacturers making this leap of faith have done so with unibody platforms; that is, automobile underpinnings, rather than a body-on-frame chassis, the stuff of which trucks are made. The thinking is that there is a huge market for vehicles that look like SUVs but drive like cars.
An example of this, and a very successful one, is the Lexus RX 300, which looks SUVish but drives like a Toyota Camry.
But Isuzu is a Japanese truck company, even though it has deep-sixed its pickup to become all SUVs all the time. Its lineup now comprises the venerable Trooper, Rodeo, Rodeo Sport, ultra-weird Vehicross and now the Axiom, all built on truck chassis.
Isuzu makes no apologies for this, instead touting the strength that comes from anchoring the body to a steel box-section ladder frame, designed and blueprinted on a Cray supercomputer to provide what Isuzu describes as "the ride of a European sedan and the strength of a truck."
Isuzu says it understands the merits of unibody construction for SUVs but says body-on-frame better suits its SUV-specialist niche and does a better job of providing "strength, reliability and longevity."
Truck underpinnings usually mean a rougher ride than the unibody rigs, but Isuzu was clearly determined to avoid this, and the result is more like the ride of an older Cadillac than a European sedan. Passengers are not jarred but occasionally find themselves "doing the wave" on certain sections of road.
Credit or blame goes to the vehicle's 7.9 inches of wheel travel and springs tuned to absorb jarring and vibration. The suspension can be firmed up simply by pushing a button on the instrument panel to the "sport" setting, but I think most will prefer the cushier ride.
Isuzu's marketing people contend that the Axiom is the answer for people looking for something out of the ordinary design-wise, and it's certainly that. They contend the Axiom blends "the size and strength of an SUV (with) the performance of a sports sedan."
One area where the Axiom seems decidedly untruckish is its 4-wheel drive system. Trucks with 4X4 capability usually have a manual transfer case next to the transmission shifter that requires both strength and patience to wrestle into gear. In the old days, you even had to get out and manually lock or unlock the wheel hubs. This was always fun during a blizzard.
Not the Axiom. When the going gets tough, one simply switches out of rear-wheel drive and into TOD , for "torque on demand," and the power is then shunted from the rear wheels to the front drivers as road conditions require. When things get really hairy, just switch to 4X4 low range.
Axiom's strongest selling point is its 230-horsepower, 3.5-liter V-6 engine mated to a 4-speed automatic transmission. The motor always surprised me at how willing it was to accelerate both off the line and when passing on the freeway.
It's a pretty quick sport-ute for a vehicle that weighs more than two tons and can tow up to 4,500 pounds. Churning out 230 pound-feet of torque at 3,000 rpm and 200 pounds at a very low 1,200 rpm, it offers a wide power band.
Still, Axiom faces formidable competition from the more than 50 SUV choices waiting for you to kick their tires, and many of them, such as the Ford Explorer, have created a following that would never dream of venturing into the Isuzu fringe.
But for those who avoid the mainstream, the Axiom may be just the ticket. For example, I can see Saab owners making the switch to Axiom when the SUV bug bites.
Isuzu assures that the Axiom is not aimed at the same folks who buy its Rodeo and Trooper models. It expects to sell some 32,000 Axioms per year and mostly to "conquest" buyers, meaning those who have never before bought an Isuzu product.
Vehicles like the Axiom are becoming more common, and they are blurring the distinctions between cars, trucks, minivans and SUVs. This is more than just semantics. For years, Congress has mandated fuel economy and safety standards for cars that are different or non-existent for trucks, with the rules for cars much stricter.
The popular Chrysler PT Cruiser is a good example of how confusing things have become. The average person would no doubt call it a car, and it is in terms of U.S. auto safety rules. But for federal fuel economy standards, it's classified as a truck. Go figure.
My tester was a top-line XS 4X4 model base priced at $30,785. The XS package included leather/heated front seats, a 4-way power passenger's seat, a power moonroof, fog lamps and chrome body side molding.
As expected, the XS model has all of the usual luxury and convenience gadgets, although I thought the 4-way power driver's seat needed an up/down mode to accommodate overly short or overly tall drivers.
The Axiom's fuel tank holds 19.5 gallons, and one can expect to get 16 mpg in city driving and 20 mpg on the highway, about average for a vehicle of this class.
Incidentally, the Axiom name was chosen following an Internet-based naming contest in which Isuzu received nearly 50,000 entries. Hakan Urey, an electrical engineer who lives in Redmond, Wash., was the winner, and for his effort received one of the first Axioms to come out of the Lafayette, Ind., assembly plant that Isuzu shares with Subaru.
In case you've forgotten, Webster's New Collegiate says an axiom is "a statement universally accepted as true." Wonder how Joe Isuzu, the company's legendary "lying" pitchman, will deal with that.
E-MAIL: max@desnews.com