They were certainly fairly primitive, even for the time!. The Frontera appeared in the UK in 1991 as a rebadged 1989 Isuzu Mu, which in turn was based on the Isuzu Faster pick-up from the year before.
Vauxhall using some good sense sharing things with Isuzu, same with Monterey which was a rebadged Trooper, not forgetting that gem of a 1.7 Diesel engine which still powers numerous Astra vans which prove impossible to overtake.
I liked the Frontera a lot, it was a heavy beast though having a full ladder chassis so would have benefitted more from having the 3.1 litre Trooper engine shoe horned in or even the 2.8 from the previous Trooper.
Morphing pick ups into shooting brake 4x4's provides tough and still fairly smiple vehicles, Toyota and Mitsubishi been doing this for years with 4 Runner/Surf and Challenger etc, generally they change the rear spings for coils and soften the suspension settings, though as i recall Frontera was still on leaf rear springs, nothing wrong with that, Toyota 70 series Landcruisers are still on leafs and still in high demand as the best and toughest off roader one can have short of military designs.
Had many good experiences delivering Network Q cars, many of which had only been used for 6 months on the staff car scheme with very low mileage, one memorable experience was delivering an Astra turbo flying machine to a tiny Vx dealership in a SW village possibly Somerset or Dorset i can't remember where, as i unstrappped this rare beasty a lovely lady of obviously advanced years (still a most attractive woman) came bounding up the road excited as a teenager getting her first pony, she'd bought this one and was so happy to see it arrive.
Edited by gordonbennet on 20/05/2024 at 07:45
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