mmarshall

Acura rebadged the Isuzu Trooper as the SLX, and Honda the Isuzu Rodeo as the Passport, because of a buisness agreement that Honda reached with Isuzu at the time. Honda gave Isuzu rebadged Civics to sell in the Japanese home market as the Isuzu I-Mark sedan/hatchback (Isuzu long since having stopped designing and producing their own passenger cars). Isuzu, in turn, gave Honda/Acura rebadged Rodeos and Troopers because Honda did not want to take the time and expense to develop their own SUV's for an American market where SUV's, at the time, were exploding in popularity. The SLX was a well-made vehicle and quite reliable, but, like the Trooper, was tipsy and unstable, and, in 1995-96, failed Consumer Reports' stability/rollover test. The Passport was more stable, but not as well-built, and its poor reliability record did some damage to Honda's then-sterling reliability reputation, even thought it was Isuzu-built. After selling the Passport and Rodeo for a few years, Honda decided to bite the bullet and develop their own SUV's, and, of course, we got the CR-V, Pilot, and MDX. Isuzu, in the American market, eventually faded away to virtually nothing, and recently left.


Agreed. The new TL and TSX, IMO, have also lost some of their former plushness in interior materials. The new TL, by my standards, is also butt-ugly, both front and rear.

The G Man

Nice bit of of Acura SUV history there mmarshall. The problem I had with the SLX was Acura did nothing more than slap some wood panel on and install some leather seats and call it their own. When anybody who know anything about cars knows that it is a Trooper. Maybe it the Passport was more accepted since its a Honda, but If I pay lucury car prices, I dont want Isuzu quality. The SLX, discontinuing the Integra and the bird beak are 3 of the biggest mistake by Acura in my opinion.

mmarshall

Thanks. Many people are not aware of it.....that's why I took the time to spell it out.


Auto companies can do this because the average Joe-Blow auto shopper often doesn't notice even blatent and obvious rebadging. When the Mazda Navajo came out in 1991, for example, it was the most blatent carbon copy of a 2-door Ford Explorer I had ever seen, as the Mazda pickup trucks (by then) were of the Ford Ranger. Mazda, beforehand, had designed and marketed their own American-market trucks, but Ford would no longer allow that after they bought into the company.

Isuzu quality was not necessarily a bad thing, though. The SLX, a Trooper clone, as you noted, was reliable and had pretty good fit/finish, though its tipsiness was a cause for concern. The Rodeo, which became the Passport, was obviously built to a different standard, though.....and showed up in its worse-than-average reliability record.

Also, to avoid confusion, it's important to differentiate the Trooper from the Trooper II. Despite the suffix, the earlier Trooper II was marketed BEFORE the Trooper....not the other way around, as one would expect. The earlier Trooper II never got a Honda/Acura version.

LexFather

The Isuzu Trooper actually won a C&D comparo when it debuted, the one Acura rebadged. The SLX was another mistake they made in a long line of mistakes

mmarshall

If the Trooper was good enough to win a C&D comparo, then how, in your opinion, was it a mistake on Acura's part to rebadge it? The tipsy-rollover problem that Consumer Reports found?

As I see it, Honda's main error was in simply not doing their own SUV's in the first place. They wanted a piece of the growing SUV craze of the period, and simply took the cheap way in. They DID get a pretty good buisness deal with Isuzu, considering that all they had to give in return was rebadged Civics so that Isuzu could continue the I-Mark line in the JDM.

IS-SV

Hopefully Acura is looking at more current missteps and mistakes, since they claim to have plans to become a player in the premium car business.

Och

iTrader: (3)

The SLX wasnt that bad. If anything it wasnt any worse than the LX450 of these times. This is just how SUVs were back then, and pretty much all "luxury" SUVs back then were rebadges.

SLX - Trooper
LX - Landcruiser
Navigator - Expedition
Escalade - Tahoe/Yucon
Qx4 - Pathfinder

Perhaps the only true "luxury" SUV that I can think of for these times was the Range Rover, but it was only luxury in the sense that its expensive. Everything else about it, besides the offroad prowess left much to be desired.

LexFather

Maybe it was too good looking for them? I mean at the time it seemed like a smart idea and it was pretty ahead of the curve but the interior wasn't any different and while it was fine, did not conjure images of luxury. There also was minimal advertising. I mean it was clearly an Isuzu rebadge and after the first couple years, the Trooper COMPLETELY fell off consumers maps as the Explorere, Cherokee and competition came with tons of SUVs.

The deal was bigger than that Mike, Honda got rebadged Isuzu Rodeo's and called them Passports and the Honda Odyessy became a rebadged Isuzu Oasis.





True the RR at the time was basically the only true luxury SUV, the G-wagon was illegally imported and the LandCruiser while very nice was a "Toyota".

The LX 450 was a "rebadge" yet after one year took the luxury SUV sales crown from RR.

Its a case of image somewhat and Lexus image and mojo is a lot stronger where people accepted the more expensive "rebadge" in the LX 450 and today the model has developed into the LX 570. The SLX failed, was discontinued and that is that..

Och

iTrader: (3)

Well, I disagree with that. The SLX didnt exactly fail, it kind of got replaced by the MDX, which was very successful and actually still doing fairly well.

I think the whole reason of the SLX was simply that Honda wanted a piece of the pie during the SUV craze, and they did not have a platform that they could base an SUV on. Thus they went into partnership with Isuzy and got to use their Rodeo and Trooper rebadged as Passport and SLX. In turn Isuzu got to use the Odyssey rebadged as Oasis.

As soon as Honda developed thier own CRV, Pilot and MDX they dumped Isuzu.

With all of that being said, I still insist that pretty much all of the 90ies "luxury" SUVs were awful. One worse than another. None of them was truly luxury, but they did create a whole new segment for true luxury SUVs and of course, crossovers.

LexFather

Sorry it failed. If it didn't fail, they would have continued to use the name SLX. You don't drop a successful name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acura_SLX

The SLX sold poorly and was discontinued after 1999. It is said that sales were affected by bad press when the 1996-1997 models were rated "Not Acceptable" by Consumer Reports for their tendency to roll over during testing. In a lawsuit brought by Isuzu against Consumers Union, the court found that some of the magazine's statements showed a "reckless disregard" for the truth. The car was not very popular, and was thus only sold in the United States; it was not even being available in Canada.

Its not even mentioned on Acura's site.

http://www.acura.com/SearchResults.a...chString.c.slx

I8ABMR

I actually remeber the SLX. I remember in that time period there were a lot of companies sharing cars and basically just rebadging them. Anyone remember the MAZDA Navajo. It was a rebadged Ford Explorer POS American crap in Japanese clothes. My buddy who had one didnt know this when he bought it and regretted having the car with all of its major issues. Typical

The G Man

I cannot think of one Acura that sold worst than the SLX, I think even the vigor did better.

mmarshall

Thanks for the memory check. I did mention the Rodeo-Passport and Civic/I-Mark deals, but I had forgotten about the Odyssey-Oasis deal. The first-generation Odyssey, which became the Oasis, was a Honda design, not Isuzu, and was extremely well-built and reliable (especially compared to the Chrysler minivan competition)......but was clearly too small for the American market and had only a 4-cylinder, which Honda took care of in the second-generation design. Unfortunately, the second-generation model suffered from the unreliable, GM-supplied, sliding-side-door mrchanism.

The Oasis never really registered on the automotive radar screen and, not surprisingly, didn't last very long.

Och

iTrader: (3)

Well yeah, you're probably right. But like I said, the only reason Acura even made the SLX is because they didn't have anything else to rebadge. They were a sporty brand in the 90ies, remember?

Och

iTrader: (3)

The Vigor actually transformed into TL.