GEO: Forgotten Car Brands

The Chevrolet sub-brand that didn’t slow the Japanese invasion.

With a showroom full of cars and trucks right-sized and right-priced to meet the demands of a nation fatigued by high inflation and expensive gasoline, Toyota saw massive retail gains in the U.S. during the Eighties.

Between 1985 and 1988, the Japanese carmaker saw sales leap from around 925,000 units to 1.25 million. Toyota was not alone. Other makers from the island nation, including Honda, Nissan, and Mazda were carving out meaningful chunks of the U.S. market as well.

With a portfolio of larger and more traditional vehicles, and almost nothing in the lineup to counter the Japanese invasion, General Motors hatched a plan and… it was a doozy.

Eager to counter the sales successes enjoyed by upstart Japanese-brand competitors, General Motors decided meet the enemy head-on…with their own products. Literally.

That plan was GEO, a new GM brand stocked with small, affordable vehicles sourced by Japanese carmakers. The GEO Lineup, which reached five models at one point, included vehicles built by the likes of Isuzu, Suzuki, and Toyota.

The new franchise was offered to Chevrolet dealers, 80 percent of which chose to participate in the program. The small, fuel-efficient GEOs were retailed on the same lots as much larger Chevrolet Malibus and Caprices, as well as—curiously—Chevy’s own, and rather popular, compact Cavalier.

GEO was neither a success nor a failure. But it did fail to draw many import intenders into Chevy/GEO stores. Between 1989 and 1997 about 800,000 GEOs found buyers. During the same period, Chevrolet built and sold roughly 2 million Cavaliers.

GEO wrapped things up after 1997. Oddly, several GEO models would soldier on as Chevy products, likely confusing the buying public somewhat. Shared below are the cars and trucks sold as GEOs. How many of these have you seen on the road?