We have a lot to thank Canadians for. From maple syrup to poutine to even our own German-car wrenching wordsmith Thomas Hundal, our neighbors up north are responsible for some great things we enjoy here in the Lower 48.
Over thirty years ago, the province of Ontario helped us avoid the infamous Chicken Tax by assembling a very fun and capable little mock-Wrangler off-roader and importing it here. In their own country, however, they sold this particular product as the only ‘light truck’ ever to have a Pontiac badge on it. Meet the Pontiac Sunrunner.
Great Sales, Uh, Turnover
In North America, the Sunrunner story starts in the mid-eighties when a company best known for two-wheeled recreation vehicles decided to sell one with four tires in the US. Introduced for the 1986 model year, Suzuki’s Samurai was the brand’s legendary Jimny sport utility made up for the American market and offered in both hard top and convertible body styles.
Priced at a mere $6200, it quickly outsold the Wrangler YJ, and Suzuki moved nearly twice as many Samurais as the Jeep, which was priced $2,000 more than the Suzuki.
The ad campaign was great at promoting what was almost third-world transportation as a first-world plaything. It was high fun, high value, and, unfortunately, high center of gravity. Consumer Reports felt it could too easily be steered into a rollover, which earned a NOT ACCEPTABLE rating from CR. At least the one Jack White bought fairly recently is a hardtop to protect him if he tries to corner too fast.
Despite the early market success, Suzuki was going to run out of buyers fast with so agricultural an offering. The solution was a vehicle that would end up wearing so many different brand badges, that they may as well have been magnetic.
The Sidekick’s Sidekicks
A more car-like SUV would be needed by Suzuki to increase its share in the market that was then in its infancy before growing into the monster it is today. There would be challenges, though. The 25 percent so-called “Chicken Tax” on imported trucks meant that something domestically made would be the most cost-effective solution, so a joint venture called CAMI (Canadian Automobile Manufacturing Inc.) was created with Suzuki and GM of Canada to build this new, more streetable SUV in Ingersol, Ontario as well as Japan.
This new mini SUV was launched as a 1989 model called the Sidekick at Suzuki dealers and the Tracker under the new “Geo” brand of captive imports in the US. Some teething issues with the new factory meant that nearly all of the 1989 and early 1990s were actually built in the Japanese Suzuki factory and imported to North America.
Of course, Canada did not yet have a “Geo” brand, so how were they going to sell it in the country that actually built it? Well, that’s where things go strange. In Canada, General Motors has had a bizarre history of selling “captive imports.”
From the fifties up through the early seventies, GM sold British-built Vauxhalls as Envoys and later as Firenzas; cars that turned out to be so bad that owners held protest parades that Jason wrote about a little while back.
Later on in the eighties, GM came up with “Passport” dealers to sell a selection of Isuzu cars and trucks, plus a Daewoo-built Opel that we got in America as the unloved Pontiac LeMans, which was called the Passport Optima in Canada.
Initially, the Tracker was sold with a Chevy bowtie at Canadian Chevrolet-Oldsmobile-Cadillac dealers and as an identical product at Pontiac-Buick-GMC dealers. Suzuki- and Isuzu-branded “captive imports” had sold well at the Chevy stores, so GM decided to match the States and sell them under the Geo brand in Canada for 1992. This left the Pontiac-Buick-GMC dealers wanting their own versions of these products, leading The General to come up with the “Asuna” brand. This has to be the most phonetically contrived names ever thought up, complete with Motley Crue-style umlauts. Asuna also sold that awful Daewoo Opel and the Sunfire, which was a rebadged Geo Storm:
Asuna received the former-GMC Tracker and called it the Sunrunner. You can see that they got a relatively well-equipped version compared to some of the stripped-down Geo variants. Look at that dopey Asuna logo.
As expected, this sort of stupid-sounding brand only lasted for two model years in Canada; the Daewoo Opel and the Storm clone were unceremoniously dropped, while the Sunrunner now became the only Pontiac light truck ever sold.
This newly christened and groundbreaking Pontiac sure looked like fun. Still, what was it like to drive?
You Hear The Thunder, The Call Of (No) Road
The so-called Sunrunner was a cute, modern-looking thing that gave the appearance of a very car-like product with an interior that wasn’t exactly lavish but still more livable than a YJ Wrangler.
One might assume from this that it was underpinned by the mechanicals of a small sedan. Those appearances were deceiving; under its skin, the Sunrunner was a body-on-frame light truck with a very capable four-wheel-drive system featuring a hi-low transfer case (a rear drive version was also offered). Unlike the outgoing Samurai with Wrangler-like live axles on leaf springs front and back, the Sunrunner came with independent front suspension and a live axle only in back, all on coil springs.
That ruggedness was and still is admired by off-roaders, as you can see from these antics here with non-Pontiac versions:
Despite the coil springs and no live axle up front, on the streets and highways the Tracker gave a pretty good impersonation of a truck. The ride wasn’t spectacular; if you’re cross-shopping an old RAV4 and think that this Geo product will be comparable, forget it.
The 1.6 liter SOHC four produced 80 horsepower to start out with, mated to a five speed or three speed automatic; later models got a rocket ship-like 95 BHP and even an extra gear on the optional slushbox. Look, the thing has a low range for a reason.
I can’t find production figures, but the Pontiac Sunrunner lasted surprisingly long under one brand name for a Canadian GM product; from the 1994 model year all the way through 1998. The four door bodystyle that the other Suzuki variants received was never sold as a Pontiac; also, based on the brochures I’ve seen the steel hardtop model of Sunrunner ceased to exist after around the 1995 model year. Hey, it’s a Sunrunner, dammit! Give it a soft top, right?
No, The Aztek Was Not A Truck
When the second-generation Tracker debuted for 1999, no Sunrunner version was offered. That makes the Sunrunner the last and only Pontiac light truck. Some commercial vehicles were offered in the late twenties, but they were simply car based. The various El Camino clones (like the one based on the G8 near the end of Pontiac’s life) were just one offs; the Montana simply a minivan dressed up like a mock SUV. The Aztek? Don’t get us started.
I’ve only seen one Sunrunner for sale; this non-running but clean looking example for an asking price of $2500. Trackers and Sidekicks are hard enough to find, so I’d imagine the Pontiac version is thin on the ground.
Was the Sunrunner just a badge engineered bodge or a real Pontiac? Well, if so, you could call any number of platform-sharing GM products that wore the Pontiac logo the same thing. The Sunrunner was undeniably an amusing, capable and machine that could be quite a thrill to drive with the top down on a beach or on some muddy back trail. If that’s not Pontiac excitement, what is?
Pontiac Points: 64/100
Verdict: The WalMart BMW brand make a Dollar General Land Rover that was almost as capable, and a lot more reliable.
Top graphic image: General Motors
My Geo Tracker was the best car I’ve ever owned. Basic, simple, reliable, FUN!!! Drove it for 14 years and the only issue was rust. Once I could see the road from the inside I had to replace it, but I miss it dearly.
I had a 4 door Sidekick in college. It was an auto, unfortunately, but man was it fun to tool around in and take on the many miles of dirt roads and trails in the area. My friend had given me a big subwoofer in a box that I just chucked in the cargo compartment. I needed 12V power for it and the rear defroster was broken, so I just stole that wire and used it, giving me on-demand bass by pushing the defrost button.
I sold it when I got married since we were moving cross country and my wife’s Mazda3 didn’t strain to hit 65 while the tops of the doors flapped in the wind. There’s one in my area that looks just like mine now, and I’m always tempted to go knock on the door to see what they’d take for it.
I would like to offer a correction. The Samurai did NOT have a tip over problem. There is evidence that Consumer Reports took issue with the Samurai for some reason and very deliberately skewed the rollover test. They pushed the Samurai harder and harder until they got a rollover, then presented that as though they had done the normal test. Suzuki sued, and though they settled out of court, CR has come out and said they “never intended to state or imply that the Samurai easily rolls over in routine driving conditions”. NHTSA data shows that the rollover frequency of Samurai is the same as the same years of S10 Blazers.
A samurai was one of the 3 roll over accidents I have been in. IT was the only one we rolled back up right and drove away from.
Thanks for beating me to the punch, I really wish stories that include this non-trivial bullshit would call it out for what it was. As a former Samurai as a first car owner, I can confirm that if they were prone to roll over; I certainly would have rolled mine.
I thought the Samurai was kinda cool when it came out. Same with the Geo Tracker ,even if my red-neck NC Navy friend scoffed at “fuel efficient 4WD”.
I guess there are a hundred ways to define the word “truck”, but Pontiac sold Sedan Deliveries from about 1949-1958 and by my definition, they’re trucks.
They are to me, too. But the Sunrunner was, for some reason, classified as a light truck by the NHTSA
NHTSA’s definitions for a light truck are so generous that the PT Cruiser, HHR, and Matrix/Vibe twins are also classified as light trucks.
Light truck was down to flat loading area or removable seats if I remember right. So small wagons and suvs that had a flat floor design all counted to bring down truck fleet efficiency average.
Why would the NHTSA classify the Sunrunner as anything? It wasn’t sold in the states! (j/k, I assume you meant the Tracker/Sidekick)
I’d love to drive into Cars and Coffee in a Pontiac Sunrunner.
Me too. With a few boxes of Timbits in the trunk
Indeed, can use the Timbits to draw people over to your “Geo Tracker”, and watch their faces when they see the Pontiac emblem!
I’m STILL salty that the deal I made last fall on a Pontiac Sunrunner fell through.
I’ll own one, one day…
Well at least that prevented rust from occurring.
In some parallell universe, the Samurai was definitely sold as the Pontiac Suntumbler or Suntoppler or perhaps Pontiac Capsize.
I think the Sunfire was a rebadged Isuzu Impulse, rather than its mechanical (but differently styled) twin the Geo Storm.
Came to say this. The Storm had a unique front fascia, whereas the Sunfire is visually identical to the Impulse. I always preferred that nose to the Storm’s.
I think I read somewhere that for every Impulse that Isuzu managed to sell in the US, Geo moved 30 Storms. This despite the fact that the Impulse could be had as an AWD turbo RS. How’s that for the power of marketing, branding and dealer networks?
A turbo AWD RS version of (basically) a Geo Storm? Damn I’d like to see/drive one of those.
They were rare even when new.
Yeah, sorry about that. I’ll clarify it; also apparently Asuna got the cool shooting brake version.
The Pontiac versions of non-Pontiac cars Canada got but we didn’t always intrigue me. A little. Until I realize that badge aside there’s nothing much different. Would still be fun to import one and make people do a double take.
The whole Pontiac Canada thing was definitely interesting, and more a quirk of how GM was set up there.
In Canada, many dealerships paired Chevrolet/Oldsmobile/Cadillac together, and then Pontiac/Buick/GMC together. Only…Chevrolet’s sales volume could outsell everybody else combined. And because dealer networks were thinner, GM Canada needed each dealer to have a broader lineup at multiple price points. So rather than letting Chevrolet dominate, GM Canada decided to even out the score and let Pontiac extend to selling lower-end cars, as well. That allowed Chevrolet-level cars to be sold at Pontiac dealerships, rather than needing to have Chevrolet dealers in those same areas. And that gave GM a fuller reach at all price levels.
As far as building them in Canada, keep in mind that this practice began back when GM was more or less a collection of interconnected but distinct companies, with a mixture of common and unique engineering. Before the 1965 Auto Pact, Canada and the US had tariffs and a more-segmented auto industry, so Chrysler, Ford and GM often built Canada-specific variants of cars at Canadian plants rather than shipping them north from the US. It was cheaper that way.
The reasons those Canadian-built Pontiacs were Chevrolet-based was because GM Canada already had Chevrolet manufacturing infrastructure up there. Building the Pontiac cars in Canada and having them actually use Pontiac engines and frames would have required more unique tooling, more parts complexity and more cost…for a smaller market. So GM Canada instead took the (often-smaller) Chevrolet underpinnings and adapted Pontiac styling to fit them.