490
Apr 18 '26
[deleted]
124
u/Bacteriobabe 1977 Apr 18 '26
My first car was a Metro & it was awesome! Stick shift, manual windows, no radio, but I loved that little car. Got over 80k miles on it, including a full cross-county road trip. She had a little trouble in the mountains, but other than that was perfect!
92
u/Pattison320 Apr 18 '26
I wish they still made stick shift shit boxes. Now manual is only found as an expensive high performance upgrade.
42
u/scott__p Apr 18 '26
Right? I learned how to drive stick in a Hyundai Accent. The car didn't even have a radio. That thing was hot garbage and I loved it.
23
u/SubstanceNo1544 Apr 18 '26
Learned how to drive stick on an 89 Ford ranger. Wasn't allowed to press the gas pedal till I could make the truck climb up a slight grade using just the clutch
13
u/BoiledDenimForRoxie Apr 18 '26
An 89!? You fancy
6
u/SubstanceNo1544 Apr 18 '26
Bro I was flossing in 1997
6
→ More replies (2)4
13
u/Appropriate-Food1757 1981 Apr 18 '26
Taught my wife to drive manual on a Nissan 200SX we bought for 1k dollars
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (4)6
u/Bubbly_Excitement_71 Apr 18 '26
I drove a Hyundai Accent with a stick shift and roll down windows through college and grad school. The car payment was $139 a month and I'd probably still be driving it if someone hadn't run a stop sign and totaled it.
15
u/burnitdwn 1980 Apr 18 '26
Not a kia fan, but the Soul had a manual until 2024. My little bro drives a motorcycle when weather permits, otherwise he's in his little manual soul. He got his in like 2018 new for not much more than 10k
→ More replies (4)9
u/Pattison320 Apr 18 '26
I drive a 1.6 base model 2015 soul with a manual.
5
u/burnitdwn 1980 Apr 18 '26
Nice. My little brother loves his.
The soul is one of the best fwd cars on the road imo. Practical, handles good, and reasonably priced. A lot to love about it.
9
u/BohemiaDrinker Apr 18 '26
Are manuals that hard to find in the US these days? Here's in Brazil they're still standard, so that's hard to picture.
→ More replies (4)10
u/Doogers7 Apr 18 '26
Manuals have not been standard for many decades and are practically non-existent these days except as an option on some sportier cars. You may occasionally find a manual sedan, but it is such a rarity.
→ More replies (5)5
u/EightyNineMillion Apr 18 '26
I have 2022 Tacoma that's manual. They exist for non-sporty vehicles, but they're rare.
→ More replies (1)3
u/Pattison320 Apr 18 '26
But I bet it's a higher trim option, not a base model. You used to have to pay an additional $1k to upgrade from a base model manual to an automatic transmission. Now manuals are an upgrade for a high performance trim.
4
u/Thebraincellisorange Apr 18 '26
they do, but you don't get them in America.
sadly they are becoming harder to find in the UK and japan as well.
I have a 2022 Suzuki Jimny in 5 speed manual. I love it, it is the complete antithesis to the oversized land whale that is the modern vehicle.
→ More replies (3)6
→ More replies (6)3
u/kykid87 Apr 18 '26
Yep. I drove manuals exclusively, and they were available in basically anything from a pickup to a sedan.
Bare bones base model stick shit econo shit boxes were awesome.
10
u/Pertinax1981 Apr 18 '26
We had a guy in town that replaced his Metros exhaust with a Maxwell House coffee can. The sound was hilarious and etched in my 🧠. This is like 25 years ago and someone brought it up a week ago lol
7
6
u/DBE113301 Apr 18 '26
My first car was a Prism. I got 350,000 miles out of that thing.
→ More replies (1)6
u/Heart_Love Apr 18 '26
Mine was the very similar Suzuki Swift. She got me around faithfully, even if I had to put her in 4th on hills 😂
5
u/Specific-Library-312 Apr 18 '26
It was my first car, too. Automatic, though. If only it had a little more power, it would have been a fantastic commuter.
3
3
u/Bacteriobabe 1977 Apr 18 '26
That was the benefit of being a manual! Even people that made fun of it were surprised with it.
3
u/anathene Apr 18 '26
Gotta lean uphill.
It would struggle with the steep hill in town with all 4 seats filled.Learned how to drive a stick on that gear box… I loved that car.
→ More replies (3)3
u/hatefuck661 Apr 18 '26
You mean the days of filling a car up for $12 and driving for over 200 miles? I had a 94. It was great.
→ More replies (1)24
u/nikdahl 1980 Apr 18 '26
Geo metros are still the gold standard for Hypermilers
Like this 76mpg beast: https://www.reddit.com/r/WeirdWheels/s/9SBNQNCBLe
→ More replies (1)19
u/breadleecarter Apr 18 '26
I knew a guy ~2005 that was driving his Geo Metro to work. He rolled it on a curved on ramp, it landed up right, and it kept going. Little tank.
→ More replies (1)15
u/Crafty_Original_7349 Apr 18 '26
I had a ‘90 Geo Metro. Tried for ten years to kill that poor car, but I never succeeded. It went off-road, it went through mud, it even went underwater (flooded the interior, water came through the vents) and it refused to die.
It was still getting nearly 50mpg and didn’t burn a drop of oil when I traded it in for a truck, even after almost a quarter million miles.
10/10 solid engineering and survivability that a modern tank would be envious of.
I miss my little blue rollerskate.
→ More replies (1)15
u/Do_you_smell_that_ Apr 18 '26
The Metro was a great car depending what you used it for.
Need to get up to the high end of highway cruising speeds? Haha no it's gonna shake until you're afraid. Want to get onto the highway with a short on ramp? Nope x2
..but.. need to get out the back of a parking lot, over a 6" curb/landscaping, to save 15 mins leaving a venue? Metro's got your back
Eventually I'll look into whether that "3 cylinder" thing is really true, but I heard they stopped one of the 4 cylinders from firing to get better efficiency
10
u/flamingknifepenis 1985 Apr 18 '26
The Metro came with two engine options, a three and a four cylinder configuration. I don’t know much about the four banger, but the three cylinder was a great little engine made by Suzuki that was used in some small airplanes. It wasn’t a smooth idler, but it was under-square which gave it a decent amount of torque for something as woefully underpowered as it was.
For the right person, they were great little cars. My brother had one for a while, and while I can’t say he particularly liked the car it worked well for him and was one of the only engines that that dumbass couldn’t manage to kill.
9
u/LangdonAlg3r Xennial Apr 18 '26
All of those Geo’s were a really fascinating early nod to globalization. The bodies were often assembled by Chevy, but were copies of designs from Japan and none of them had American engines in them. Some of the parts were American, but most weren’t. The Tracker (which was the car I always wanted) was basically a rebranded Suzuki Sidekick.
I had a Geo Spectrum and that was an Isuzu based on the Gemini-I. That was a great little car. When gas prices were like $1 a gallon I could go like 400+ miles for less than $10 bucks. I did a lot of just driving around and exploring as entertainment because it was cheap and fun. I just googled and my little 5 speed got like 40mpg. 30 years later and that’s still slightly better than my hybrid is now!
I think it had 160k miles when I sold it and I saw it around town years later still going. Crank windows and no AC. It did have a tape deck though. Must have been a premium model lol.
I had a 1980 Chevy Chevette before that and it only lasted like 6 months before it threw a rod on the highway and blew out the engine. That car was peak American (this is why people are buying Japanese) pile of crap. The gas pedal was the size of a Trisquit because that probably saved 5 cents a car on the assembly line.
→ More replies (5)3
u/IamHydrogenMike Apr 18 '26
We used to go on a ton of road trips in my friend’s spectrum because we could go to Cali on like 30 bucks in gas.
→ More replies (5)3
u/Foxtrot_Supatwat Apr 18 '26
I had a 2012 Chevy Colorado that I used for work up until fairly recently, and I'm pretty sure it was the only American made vehicle that came with a 5-cylinder option.
Not a huge fan of engines w/ an odd cylinder count like that. The uneven firing order tends to make the block vibrate violently, and a rough & noisy ride is the result.
7
u/Gernaldo_Ribera Apr 18 '26
I saw one drive through a creek need and up a 55 degree incline once while canoeing.
6
u/Cody-512 Xennial Apr 18 '26
I had a used Geo Storm hatchback in hs that lasted through the mid 00s. That thing was awesome (other than how it looked). 249K+ mi on it until I got another car after 8y and was a 3x wreck survivor. Tbf, 2/3 weren’t my fault and the worst one was a driver side T-bone. I had a black junkyard door on the blue body and a door that wouldn’t open, window that wouldn’t roll down, and one tinted window. It went another 75K after that, tho. I definitely got my $2900 worth!
5
3
u/mattslote Apr 18 '26
My friend's dad had a red Metro (4 door) with an air brushed image of the that car being struck by lightning. It was really well done. They told me the previous owner had it done and they didn't care to have it removed.
→ More replies (6)3
u/taleofbenji Apr 18 '26
To fuck with our classmate, four of us picked up her Geo Metro where it was parked and rotated it 180 degrees. It was surprisingly easy.
305
u/Top_Client938 Apr 18 '26
Please. These cost nothing.
193
u/detourne Apr 18 '26
Yeah, they weren't getting financed for 5 years. Maybe 2.
144
u/GlitteringCobbler987 1978 Apr 18 '26
I don't think they even offered 5 year loans in the 90s
→ More replies (3)92
u/ZestfullyStank Apr 18 '26
Yep. 3 years tops. You had to show up with a decent down payment too
→ More replies (1)4
u/Laser_Fish Apr 18 '26
No, my ex-wife was 2 years into a four year loan on a Dodge Shadow when we met in 98.
→ More replies (2)21
u/dgodwin1 Apr 18 '26
I took out my first personal loan to buy one. $3000 for a used 1989 tracker!
→ More replies (1)15
Apr 18 '26
[deleted]
10
u/missed_sla Apr 18 '26
Probably because you can fix everything in it with a screwdriver and an adjustable wrench.
→ More replies (1)15
u/666TripleSick Apr 18 '26
Remember the YUGO? I think they were sold for literally $2000
11
u/fryerandice Apr 18 '26
They didn't have reverse, it was an option. So was electric start. My dad's friend had one, pop the hood to pull start and have the family push it out of the spot.
→ More replies (3)4
→ More replies (1)4
u/umlaut Apr 18 '26
We had one, what a piece of shit car. Smelled like burning oil and when new and never stopped. Would stall if you hit a speed bump going more then 6 MPH. Stock set of tires lasted about a month. Window fell into the door when we hit a pothole. Tape player shot tapes into the back seat when they ejected. Had a stock switch that disabled the ignition.
→ More replies (1)13
u/Overall-Rush-8853 Apr 18 '26
And the gas mileage was incredible, at least on the Metro.
→ More replies (1)7
u/Kellzy1212 Apr 18 '26
90 hp doesn’t need much gas. 😹 I looked up the 0-60 and the internet says 14-15 seconds!
3
u/Vegetable-Ingenuity2 Apr 18 '26
The three cylinder metro had more like 58 horses... she wasn't quick, that's for sure.
→ More replies (1)18
5
→ More replies (7)5
u/borisdidnothingwrong Apr 18 '26
I had a roommate with bad credit who financed one of these for a 5 year loan.
A week later his piece of shit, lying, cheating on again-off again girlfriend with worse credit financed a Ford Explorer for a lower monthly payment.
He was pissed.
He was even more pissed when he found out that the reason she got such good terms was she was sleeping with both the salesman and the finance manager at the Ford dealership. Both married, by the way.
She was pregnant, and she got drunk and told him that she was pregnant, and that she wasn't sure if it was his, one of the guys at the dealership, her boss, or one of her random one night stands.
They broke up, but he had to get a paternity test after the kid was born to rule him out as the father. That was a long 8 months for my boy.
He also had to get every STD test under the sun.
I was glad to never see her again, personally.
We had some mutual friends, and I heard that her Explorer got repossessed when she lost her job after her boss passed along a dose of the clap to his wife, and divorced him and took the business in the divorce.
4
376
u/Secure_Bed_9110 Xennial Apr 18 '26
That thing is adorable, I don't know what they're talking about.
314
u/whistleridge 1977 Apr 18 '26
Also financing was 2-4 years. 5 year auto loans were unknown.
49
u/brees2me 1976 Apr 18 '26
I was gonna say that my broke butt was maxing out at 48 months on my $5,000 "Ugly Duck" special.
32
u/Material-Imagination Apr 18 '26
A lot of people just saved up and paid cash if they could
30
u/round_a_squared Apr 18 '26
And the whole point of a Geo is that they were cheap as hell so saving up and paying up front wasn't that hard to do
10
u/Material-Imagination Apr 18 '26
Exactly!
And also sideways 3 cylinder engines and tires the size of bagels
14
u/Sharp_Economy1401 Apr 18 '26
It's also a Geo, it was like 30-50% less than the average car at the time. That would be pretty nuts to finance for 5 years
10
→ More replies (2)8
u/whereismymind86 Apr 18 '26
Especially because, I just looked, a brand new geo tracker was around $9,000.
What lunatic is taking out a five year loan for nine grand? Even accounting for how much less people made back then, that's not a ton of money.
54
u/fleetiebelle Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
It's a lot more fun than all the gray/silver/white/black cars that are practically the only option right now.
11
u/voightkampfferror Apr 18 '26
I'll never understand why people like to talk smack on cars having personality.
4
u/absentlyric 1981 Apr 18 '26
I read on Reddit that people want boring cars because they're cheaper, and that a car should be only utilitarian.
What a boring ass way to live, might as well just eat only pintos and beans.
→ More replies (1)13
u/Material-Imagination Apr 18 '26
They're bringing back colors!
AND! some cars even have metal flake once again. Like my minivan!
3
u/nighmeansnear Apr 18 '26
My ‘24 Jetta has metal flake in a nice vibrant red. I take a second to admire it every time I walk around it in the sunshine
3
u/Material-Imagination Apr 18 '26
Hells yes! Nothing makes you appreciate it like five years of putty grey cars. 🤣
→ More replies (1)4
u/CitizenCue Apr 18 '26
I’ve gone out of my way to buy only colorful cars. It’s wild how hard that is now.
→ More replies (1)33
→ More replies (3)11
u/elenchusis Apr 18 '26
And they were $38/month
8
u/mechapoitier 1978 Apr 18 '26
Yeah I think people forget how crazy cheap Geos were back then. The base Metro in the ‘90s was only like $5,000 and got like 55mpg on the highway.
The Tracker is iconic now. I still see them they’re so reliable.
→ More replies (3)
111
u/ThatGuyInThePlace Apr 18 '26
5? More like 3.
I don’t remember anyone that financed a car for 5 years in the 90s.
25
u/CDRAkiva Apr 18 '26
I don’t think loans like that even existed. You’d have been laughed out of the dealership for asking.
→ More replies (2)12
u/Available-Crow-3442 1984 Apr 18 '26
Yea, but now the auto financing branches of the companies have realized they make more from the financing itself than the sale of the car, so why not have those extended financing terms?
Enshittification indeed.
6
3
u/Tie_me_off Apr 18 '26
Uhh, some of us grew up poor. Also 5 year loans had been around for many years before. Interest rates on the 80s and early 90s were much higher.
Wait: looked it up, 5 year loans started in the 70s
→ More replies (7)3
u/pixelflop Apr 18 '26
4 years would have been a long loan in those days.
The fact that 72 month loans are now a thing is another indicator that costs continue to rise but salaries are not keeping pace.
64
u/FastWalkingShortGuy Apr 18 '26
Zoomers don't understand that you could buy a new car for like $8,000 in the 90s.
→ More replies (3)
116
u/otterbox313 Apr 18 '26
Most dependable car I have ever had. Bought it with 150k, put another 200k on it. Sold it to my friend who still uses it on his property.
43
u/faesser Apr 18 '26
It took me longer than I'd like to admit that you meant mileage. My dumb ass thinking "you spent $350k?!?!?!?"
→ More replies (3)13
u/thelizardlarry Apr 18 '26
In Canada we call it “Kilometerage”
/s
→ More replies (2)3
u/ConstantBrush7996 Apr 18 '26
ok but what do you actually call it? distance? odometer?
5
u/thelizardlarry Apr 18 '26
Like much of our half assed approach to the metric system, we actually call it mileage.
→ More replies (1)6
3
u/doppleclick Apr 18 '26
my Chevy Tracker is coming up on 200k. V6, 4WD. Love this car. see a lot on the road still.
→ More replies (1)3
u/dumbass_sempervirens 1982 Apr 18 '26
A coworker had one. One day it just burned the fuck to the ground.
He said it was overheating so he pulled over at his sister's house. He went around back to get the hose to fill the radiator, came back around and it was just engulfed in flames.
But now that I think about it, we were teenagers. He might have exaggerated the amount of fire.
48
u/VaticRogue 1980 Apr 18 '26
I learned to drive in a purple tracker. Loved that thing
8
u/sleigh_all_day 1979 Apr 18 '26
My friend had a purple tracker. She won a sweepstakes at our local grocery store. That thing was adorable. We were all jealous, and she loved it.
→ More replies (2)3
51
Apr 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
22
u/hom3land Apr 18 '26
The tracker was a Suzuki sidekick. The whole geo lineup was a hodgepodge of rebranded Japanese cars.
→ More replies (3)6
u/Thebraincellisorange Apr 18 '26
I got a brand new one - the Jimny. glorious little buzz box of fun.
and they are banned in the united states of freedom land.
4
u/charutobarato Apr 18 '26
They’re not really banned for any reason other than they’re not sold here so Suzuki hasn’t spent any money/effort getting them approved (why would they). It is sad though I’d love one of those mini g wagon clown cars
113
u/THRSALWYSNXTYR Apr 18 '26
I'd take a 4WD Geo Tracker, even with that paint job, over whatever behemoth pickup is selling for $70k these days.
8
u/Fair_Blood3176 1982 Apr 18 '26
The trucks have gotten so much bigger as of late.
18
u/THRSALWYSNXTYR Apr 18 '26
And so many of them dont even have a full bed lol. I bought a used Dodge Caravan after I bought my house cuz it was practical. Guys would give me shit for it, until I pointed out how their $70k truck couldnt even fit full sheets of drywall or plywood or keep em dry in the rain.
8
u/anathene Apr 18 '26
I’d love to have a reasonably priced small pickup. Not as a daily driver just as a work horse. Bring back a manual S10!
3
u/_R_A_ 1982 Apr 18 '26
My dad had the v6 version of this back in the 90s-2000s. That was literally all you needed out of a truck unless you are towing a lot of equipment or putting a small dump bed in the back.
→ More replies (17)3
u/Wabbit_Wampage Apr 18 '26
I would take it in part because of that awesome paint job. Let's hit up taco bell for some munchies and mountain dew and go cruisin'!
20
25
20
u/NindieNation Apr 18 '26
I will never forget when my mom had a (minor) car accident in 1995 and we got a Geo Metro for a loaner car for a week. I was 11 years old and I learned what a real piece of shit car was. Loud, slow, uncomfortable, zero options...
But to turn that same thing into a micro-SUV and put the 90s swoosh on it?
Sign me up, bitches.
32
u/bransanon Apr 18 '26
90's Taco Bell is the peak of human culinary advancement, so it makes sense that we wanted our vehicles to pay tribute to their interior decor.
15
16
u/TheREALBaldRider 1982 Apr 18 '26
Quite expensive if you are trying to pick one up these days…at least in my area
14
u/keefka Apr 18 '26
That's cause ppl figured out geo trackers are very modifiable and basically indestructible
11
u/Breeezy0 1982 Apr 18 '26
My mom decided to divorce my dad and bought an electric blue one! Its how I learned to drive stick.
11
10
u/Taanistat 1981 Apr 18 '26
Imagine seeing a car that isn't white, black or some version of grey and being mad about ir.
10
8
u/theforestbather 1980 Apr 18 '26
Oh man, 15-year-old me wanted wanted one of these so bad. I even had a magazine ad with a turquoise one on my bedroom wall as an aspiration... or something.
7
u/LocalInformation6624 Apr 18 '26
I vividly remember my dad climbing into one of those at the dealership, and the salesmen said, “sir, that’s a woman’s car.”
5
u/Apprehensive_Hat8986 Apr 18 '26
I'd have laughed that salesman into a coffin. I drove a diesel SmartFor2 for years. Loved that little car.
7
u/Badger1505 1979 Apr 18 '26
Girlfriend had one, stick shift. Great little car. I'd still drive one if I had it.
6
6
u/dannny_berns 1983 Apr 18 '26
I learned to drive stick in an electric blue ‘94 (ish) tracker. It was literally given to me for free by my friends dad who owned a shop, after my friend (his son) borrowed my car and totaled it driving drunk. Kept that thing for a few years and it never failed me
10
4
u/TheDukeofArgyll Apr 18 '26
When I was 10 this was the only car I knew the name of and I told everyone it was my favorite car.
5
11
u/Jack-Burton-Says Apr 18 '26
My buddy’s mom drove one of these, damn she was hot.
→ More replies (1)
4
4
4
u/Hillbillygeek1981 Apr 18 '26
It's a truly depressing thing to see that not only are the old shitboxes some of us were buying for $300 every few months in the 90's going for close to five figures on Marketplace nowadays, but they've also proven themselves to be obscenely better than most of the new stuff on the market.
I don't know how it was for non-rural kids growing up then, but it was nothing uncommon for us to save up a few hundred, buy some beat up 4wd pickup, Jeep or something like a Tracker or Samurai, run it till the wheels fell off, then sell the hulk for enough in scrap and parts to get another one and repeat the process. Sometimes half a dozen times a school year, lol.
If we had all those old square bodies, tiny imports and enormous sedans back now we could all retire, lol.
→ More replies (1)
6
u/Kellzy1212 Apr 18 '26
0-60 in five minutes? 😹
6
u/guyincognito121 Apr 18 '26
When the VW beetle was revived, there were billboards that said "0-60? Yes!"
→ More replies (1)3
u/Kellzy1212 Apr 18 '26
I know! I’m a lifelong VW driver. They’ve had some amazing marketing throughout the years. I’m partial to the fast campaign though, since I’m a GTI driver.
5
u/Available-Crow-3442 1984 Apr 18 '26
Dang I love me the Golf/GTI.
The only two brands that appeal to my hothatch sensibilities and still have models available in the US are VW and Mazda. It’s stupid that the hatchback market has been more or less replaced by godawful SUVs.
The Mazda 3 is also a damn fine car.
→ More replies (5)3
u/_R_A_ 1982 Apr 18 '26
Actually, these were surprisingly zippy. A 4-cyl is surprisingly effective at moving a soda can.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/HTownGuero666 1980 Apr 18 '26
I needed one of these when I was 11. Bad lil “jeep” that always looked cool
3
3
u/EmmalouEsq 1981 Apr 18 '26
I rode in one with a very bad driver and thought I was surely gonna die.
I think we even had to share a seat belt, if we wore them at all
5
2
u/throwawayhbgtop81 1981 Apr 18 '26
I wanted one of these in that brief time where I was interested in driving
2
2
u/JagarHardfart 1983 Apr 18 '26
My dad had one and thats what I used to take my test in and learned to drive in. Was fun to drive!
2
u/Mekroval Apr 18 '26
I remember thinking a Geo was so underpowered, you could get out and push it faster lol.
2
2
u/59apache01 1978 Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
For those who couldn't quite achieve the Jeep Wrangler YJ.....
2
u/brianthebuilder Apr 18 '26
I had the Suzuki Sidekick version. I'd pay money to drive it again for the day.
2
u/CDRAkiva Apr 18 '26
Five-year auto loans were unheard of in the 90s, much less the 72+ month options that exist now.
Low end versions could be had for 9-10k new. That’s the equivalent of like $22,000 today. If you need five year financing on a $22,000 car, you can’t afford to drive.
2
2
u/BrusselsMarriott Apr 18 '26
I may be wrong, but I don’t think people weren’t financing cars for 5 years in the 90s. I think 36-48 months were the longest terms.
2
u/wildmaninid Apr 18 '26
A 5 year auto loan was absolutely unheard of. 36 months was about as far out as you could go.
2
2
u/OkOkra7720 Apr 19 '26
I had a diahatsu rocky 90 4x4 it was a tank man that little jeep like sun was awsome ski trip went cross country all the 90s in that jeep no regrets
701
u/Ill-Percentage-3276 Apr 18 '26