Since its introduction in 1988, the Geo Tracker has been one of the smallest and lightest SUVs on the market. It was created when General Motors of Canada and Suzuki got together and formed a project called CAMI. The initial idea was to have all Trackers made in the Ingersoll plant in Ontario, Canada. This was a short lived hope due to a series of delays at the plant. Prior to opening production of the Tracker in Canada, all of them were made in Japan and imported to the United States. It wasn’t until 1990 that the company was able to produce Trackers in North America.
The Geo Tracker was initially powered by Suzuki’s 8 valve 1.6 liter 4-cylinder engine with a max of 80 horsepower. The models available 1989 and 1990 were the base convertible, the base 2 door hardtop, and the LSi hardtop. All Geo Trackers were 4 wheel drive until a convertible two wheel drive model was introduced in 1992.
In 1995 the two door hardtop model was discontinued because of the four door wagon that was planned for production in 1996. Even though Suzuki had been importing the Sidekick four doors since 1991, the CAMI factory didn’t begin producing a four door Geo until 1996. At this time the four door Geo Tracker was upgraded with Suzuki’s 16 valve 1.6 liter 4 cylinder engine that produced 96 horsepower.
In 1998 Geo merged back with Chevrolet, and all Geo models were labeled with the Chevrolet logo. Here the Chevy Tracker was born.
The Tracker differs from most other light SUVs on the market in that it is based on a light-truck chassis. Completing its small truck feel, the Tracker has a firm front suspension and a recirculating ball steering box. The front differential is mounted in front of the engine, and U-jointed drive shafts connect to coil-spring front hubs to the differential case. On the rear of the Tracker you have a light truck unit on coil springs.
As a result of this setup the tracker drives like a truck, with a SUVs durability, and much better gas mileage than most of the competition.m