Isuzu Trooper second generation

The story

The Trooper was older than the Pajero, 4Runner and Pathfinder, and by its 1992 redesign it had grown into something remarkably complete. A separate ladder frame carried double-wishbone torsion-bar front suspension and a coil-sprung live rear axle on multiple links, a big step up in ride over the old leaf springs. The 3.2-liter V6 made up to 190 hp, later 215 from a 3.5, and from 1998 BorgWarner's Torque On Demand fed the front axle automatically whenever the rear wheels slipped. Behind a 2-piece side-hinged rear door waited 117.8 cubic feet of cargo space.

Car and Driver judged its structure so stiff that everything else worked better, and on the road it steered and gripped more convincingly than its height suggested. The magazine's 1992 Trooper LS, at 1,940 kg (4,280 lb), still beat a Montero to 60 mph by nearly 2 seconds. What it lacked was a legend: no desert wins, no heritage, just plain looks. When Consumer Reports rated it Not Acceptable in 1996 after its avoidance-maneuver test, a long legal fight followed and American sales never recovered. The Trooper left the US after 2002, and owners still run them past 300,000 miles.