Thanks for stopping by and having a look at what I like to call the "American Toyota" . Toyota engineering but with American design ingenuity. Not too bad of a combination! But first....a plug for my homestate heroes ~

thaaaatt's RIGHT, BAY-BEEE!!! ...the date ~ JANUARY 4rth, 2004!! ...the event ~ The Nokia Sugar Bowl! ...the place ~ The SuperDome, New Orleans, Louisiana!! ...the competitors: The Sooners of Oklahoma State University vs. The Fighting Tigers from Louisiana State University !!! ...the score?!? 21 - 14 TIGERS!!! The OFFICIAL 2003-2004 BCS NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!! GEEEAUUUXXXXX TIGERS!!!!!

And ANOTHER jewel in the crown of those Fighting Tigers from Baton Rouge, Louisiana...

The date: January 7th, 2008.
The place: New Orleans, LA, the Superdome.
The event: The Allstate BCS National Championship

The participants:
(#2) Louisiana State University "Fighting" Tigers
(#1) Ohio State University Buckeyes

The score?
LSU - 38 / OSU - 24

The FIRST Two-Time BCS National Champions, LSU!!!!!
GEEEEAAUUXXXXXX TIGERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, Gossamer has gone into that big 'ole junkyard in the sky. After several years of getting severely beat-upon by yours truly and having just recently rolled past 200K miles on the clock the little car laid down on me. It developed what was either a rod or a main bearing knock from the sound of things. Since the little car was 13 years old and did have a bit over 200K miles I decided it simply wasn't worth the expense of getting it fixed. Plus it provided me with just the right excuse to go put myself in debt to GMAC for the next few years to get something nicer to drive, right?

Thanks to one and all who visited my page and left me their opinions. Your input, whether positive or negative, was appreciated. Now I've moved myself into a midsize SUV, a 2005 GMC Envoy XL which can be found here .

Welcome, one and all, to Prowler's Prizm's Page! Within these pages you'll find..well...a Geo Prizm. But! It's a Geo with a bit of character! (at the very least it has some decent tunez.....)

If you'll indulge me for a moment......
A bit of incomplete history on the Geo Prizm:
Starting in 1993 the Toyota Corolla and the Geo Prizm were built side-by-side in the New United Motors Manufacturing, Incorporated (NUMMI) plant in Fremont, California. Sharing the same Toyota-designed and built drivetrains, these two cars are veritable twins. Exterior cosmetics differ between the two and interior options and finish were a bit more upscale on the Toyota. The optional extended warranty offered with the Corolla was not picked up by GM, unfortunately. This, coupled with the fact of Toyotas traditionally selling for higher prices than comparable GM offerings made the Prizm a king of its price range. After giving consideration to Toyota's decades-long history of building reliable and technologically innovative products - odds are that the Prizm maybe isn't such a bad ride after all, right?

My congratulations to those of you who have taken Prizms of whatever year (Geo and Cheverolet models alike) and made them nicer than they were when you first got them while ignoring the haters (as we've all felt the pain of their presence) and "jus' doin' ya thang"...

My thanks to those page visitors who have perused the various Prizm pages created by the myriad of Prizm owners here at C-D and formed your opinion of each example based purely on the vehicle in question's merits (or lack thereof) rather than some pre-conceived notion of every Geo product being crap transportation.

For those of you that hate on Prizms....they're essentially a less expensive Corolla. Nothing wrong with that. Besides - if you don't like Geos then why look at pages belonging to people that drive them - whether that be by choice or circumstance? Shoo! Go on, now! *getting off of my soapbox now....*

Hello! My name is Jonathan but most folks call me Jon. The information and pictures on the following pages show the story of my 1995 Geo Prizm more or less from purchase to present. Thanks for stopping by my little getaround's page. If you like what you see after looking it over won't you please give me your honest opinion in the form of a rating? As well please sign the guestbook before ya go.

Here she is - my econobox pretty much the way she looked when I brought her home. Dig those snazzy WalMart hubcaps, huh? The heart of a foreign car but sold as a domestic - the best of both worlds, really sortof almost...
Tis nothing special though - just a Toyota Corolla wrapped in a slightly different skin and sold through Chevrolet dealers.
OK - so I bought this Geo for several reasons. It's good on gas. The A/C works astoundingly well. It's got a Toyota motor and transmission so it should last providing it's taken care of. What you'll find here isn't an import tuner wannabe - or someone with delusions of grandeur of what their car 'might be' one day. C'mon, guys and gals - it's a GEO! This car will NOT be seen with some completely unnecessary (read that as 'non-functional') 2-foot-tall wing bolted onto the trunklid. There are no "roll call" graphics from companies whose products are not installed on or in my car. All you'll find here is an economical daily driver with a sound system* capable of fiercely annoying my mother as I pull in the driveway when I goto visit my folks (*snicker!*) and some detailing that makes it mine rather than one of the masses. This page is lengthy but it shows most of my Prizm's evolution from just another plain little econobox to what I think has turned out to be a fairly nice lil ride. I don't have the funds to have everything done professionally so everything you'll find on this car excepting the window tinting and the paint job has been done by yours truly and I'm proud of it. It's gone from something that would never earn a second glance from the casual observer to something that might actually catch someone's eye. Why have I dedicated all of this effort into a Geo, you ask? Well the easiest answer is simplicity itself: It's what I have. I'm not a rich man by any means or else I wouldn't be driving a Prizm. Making this car nicer than it was when it was first purchased is cheaper than buying another car altogether. Please accept my thanks in advance for your time as you meander through this long-a$$ site.

(* = breakdown of the sound system found at left of page is incomplete as the available options were not enough to show all manufacturers included in my install)

The car was a one-owner car that belonged to a retiring nun who was retiring from driving as well due to continually worsening eyesight. Got a helluva deal on a car with average mileage for its age. Sparse as far as options go but what there is, it all works! (The A/C will put frost on the windows even at 100 degrees out...which isn't uncommon for a Louisiana summer....)

There are crank windows, manual locks, and a 5-speed manual transmission accompanied by the smaller of the two available motors...the 105HP, 1.6L, DOHC 16 valve inline 4-cylinder. Power steering and brakes, cloth seats, A/C, the instrument cluster that included a tachometer, and intermittent windshield wipers make up the almost non-existant options package in this particular car. I average 30mpg in town with the A/C running. Add another 9, sometimes 10mpg for highway driving and somehow trips to the gas station don't seem quite so bad anymore! (Certainly they don't occur near so frequently than they did in my last car!) And lemme tell you! It'll go 0-60 in like......well, let's just say it'll go 60. Like I said before - I harbor no illusions that this car is anything other than what it is. It's quicker than some cars on the road but slower than most. The Prizm was marketed towards people with a tight budget that needed dependable transportation. That particular aim GM (along with Toyota) got right on target.

So here's how it went (sortof...)

The first thing that had to happen was to get the windows tinted! Any of you that have spent any real amount of time below the Mason-Dixon line know how tortuous summers in the South can be (and more often than not are)

3M window film in 35% got applied to the front doors. 5% film covers the rear door windows, the back glass, and the front windshield "brow". In the South it's almost a necessity plus, in my opinion, a good tint job makes any car look better than it did without it.

The next thing that got done was getting rid of those unfortunate looking factory wheels and the wonderfully stylish hubcaps that covered them.

So, just with window tint and some new rims we've made this "before & after" comparison. Not too bad, I didn't think.

The interior ~ pretty boring as it's bone stock excepting the Scooby-Doo floormats front and rear. I have 2 Great Danes so I'm a huge Scooby fan :)

The little car was in fair shape for it's age not ever having been in a major wreck or anything like that but it was showing signs of age as well as hail damage spread fairly liberally all over. So, with an incredible deal offered to me by a friend that does paint and body for a living I decided to give it a bit fresher outlook.

And the finished product!

In '06 I unfortunately clipped a storm drain and damaged one of my Konig Kaliber wheels. I searched and I searched and I searched for a single wheel to replace the damaged one to no avail. There isn't anywhere reasonably close that repairs rims. So ~ the last option remaining was to buy a whole new set of wheels altogether.
SO! Here is what the Kalibers got replaced with - the Konig Trouble. Same diameter and offset as the Kalibers and essentially the same basic design (5-spoke rim) and here's what the car looks like currently.

Excepting some smallish details that will be shown on other pages that's pretty much the short version of how it went with the exterior cosmetics. For an older Prizm I think it turned out pretty good! It's not all riced-out while still being unique enough to stand out in a crowd without being overdone to the point of tackiness. But where this 'lil ride really shines is on the inside (where you normally are in a car, anyway, right?!?) Read on to see what I mean......

Page 1: You are here
Page 2: Metamorphosis of an audio system
Page 3: Hook it up right and you've only gotta do it once!
Page 4: Exterior Lighting
Page 5: Becoming 'The Gossamer Geo'
Page 6: Hate Mail