I was at a local dealer looking at the Turbo GP coupe and Turbo STE they had there (the owner of the dealer talked to my dad at the gas station when he was driving his Turbo GP and told him about him and said he should go take a look) and they were in really bad shape so I decided to look around the lot (only about 10 cars total or so) at everything else. It appears as though they have a thing for turbo cars, because they had 6 of them that I know for sure were turbo'*, others that were possibly. (like the supra and impreza) And since they only had ~10 cars, 6 is a lot.

So I notice this little white car sitting there. It says "All Wheel Drive Intercooled Turbo" on the back. (or something very close to that) So of course I'm drawn to it. I look at it and its an Isuzu Impulse. (basically a sportier Geo Storm with better suspension and whatnot) It didn't look like it was in too bad of shape. I was thinking about possibly picking it up for a beater but I'm not sure about their reliability, common problems they have, or really anything about the engine. Don't know if anyone here knows but I thought I would ask. It also has the Lotus Handling package, which I think all the turbo'* got stock.

Apparantly, from what I've found from searching, its a 1.6L DOHC Intercooled Turbo engine making 160hp. All of the Turbo'* were standard with a 5 speed and AWD. Sounds like a pretty fun car, should get good mileage, and should be good in the winter, and the most important of all, being such a small car, it should be damn quick. (especially with the mild mods I would put on it like a boost controller, intake, etc...)

Also, what do you guys think its worth? I didn't look at the mileage, but I would guess around 150k or so. I'm going to go back tommarrow and look at it closer as I'm not sure of the mileage or the year and I'm not sure how well it runs. I don't know if they'll let me test drive it being 17, but I'll see what I can get them to agree too.

Shawn

very rare cars

they look pretty badass, you should go for it. no rice

How rare is "very rare" out of curiosity. Any idea what the production numbers are?

I'm going to try to go for it, but I don't know what they have to get for it. If its much over $1k I can't afford it anyways, but I'll definately see what I can do. It looks like a fun little car. Since my tranny is going in the Lumina, its time to move on to something else for the beater.

Shawn

i dont know any numbers, but i know you dont see em very often

print your sig and bring that to em

Not a bad idea. Well I figure I can probably get them to ride along with me to avoid any liability problems they could have. If they don't want to let me test drive it, thats fine with me, they can sell it to someone else, and I'll tell them thats exactly how I feel about it.

There definately aren't many around anymore. I can't say that I've seen one other than this very recently...its been AT LEAST 6 months. I used to have a friend that was very intersted in them because his mom had a N/A one for a while, but unfortunately hes not around anymore so I can't really get any info from him. I'll do some research to see if I can find any numbers. I'm just wondering if its more rare than my STE or not...

Shawn

Looked up some numbers, and everywhere I can find it says there were only 800 Turbo'* made!!! It looks like performance times are 0-60 in the mid 7'* and 1/4 in mid 15'*. Not too bad. I guess a chip adds ~30hp and I'm sure an intake and boost controller would do even more. I'm kinda excited about seeing if I can get this thing now!

Shawn

a freind of mine had one actually still does it was not AWD but is was turbo and 5spd and also the Lotus handling is awesome

little mods like intake and exhaust will yield minor HP gains on a small engine like that . if you want power, you need to upgrade the turbo and fuel delivery

Intake and exhaust mods will allow you to run more boost with the same turbo without detonation. While the intake might give me no power gain, the boost it might allow me to add will give a large power gain. Opening up the exhaust on a turbo car does wonders, it allows huge potential for more power.

It looks like I will definately not be getting this car. It is WAY overpriced IMO. It is fairly low miles though (112k) I went in there today and took a closer look at it in the daylight and its got a lot of scratches, bottoms of the doors and rear fenders are developing rust, sunroof had a sealant all the way around it (looked like silicone or something like that) to seal it, obviously looking really bad and making it useless. But I talked to them and they said $5,000 was as low as they could go on it. I walked out laughing. He went on about how it was one of 800 and it was an intercooled turbo, etc.... He said it had a few minor mods and a bigger turbo, but in the shape its in I can't see it being worth even close to $2k. Retail is $2100 according to KBB, and this car wasn't even close to good shape... Eh...oh well. It'll probably be there for a while.

Shawn