The Last Carbureted Vehicle Ever Sold in the US: 1994 Isuzu Pickup

By Nigel Evans

Before gas prices spiraled out of control and people started to frantically worry about the planet, vehicle fuel delivery systems were quite rudimentary. For almost a century, the simple carburetor would sit on top of an engine and decide how much fuel the vehicle would get using air flow, springs, and simple parts.

For decades across America, the carburetor just worked and helped power everything from contractor pick-ups to big-block muscle cars, right until the early 90s, when everything changed. Now, gas prices were rising, emissions rules were tightening and designers started to lean heavily on fuel injection systems instead.

On-board diagnostics also entered the picture and very quickly carburetors became old-fashioned. Eventually they would disappear altogether and with little fanfare, as one very humble new vehicle became the last carbureted car in the US market.

Note

For the purposes of this feature, we used the classic definiton of a car, which is essentially any vehicle used for daily activities. This includes sedans, hatches, SUVs, and small to full-size pickup trucks. We did not consider heavy-duty pickups.

The Last Carbureted Vehicle America Ever Sold

By 1994, the carburetor was far too simple, regarded as old technology, and by the late 80s or early 90s, most mainstream brands had ditched the idea in favor of fuel injection. California's Air Resources Board, or CARB, would effectively force manufacturers to design their U.S. market engines around cleaner and electronically controlled fueling.

Onboard diagnostics systems were becoming widespread and as we moved into the mid-90s, few manufacturers made any attempt to sell carbureted engines at all. Still, Isuzu held out longer than any other OEM; you could order the Isuzu Pickup – the company's most basic rear-wheel-drive truck – with a 2.3-liter four-cylinder breathing through a two-barrel carburetor through 1994. When Isuzu switched its Pickup over to fuel injection for the 1995 model year, that effectively closed the book on carburetors in the US system.

A Basic Isuzu Pickup That Outlived An Entire Technology

Isuzu had been selling small trucks in the US marketplace since the 1970s, both under its own name and by rebadging them for other brands. Its 1994 Pickup epitomized simplicity with its regular cab, rear-wheel drive set-up, five-speed manual, and inline four that still relied on a carb to mix its fuel and air. So, you wouldn't get any fancy intake plumbing, high-pressure fuel rail systems, or precise injectors, but instead you’d get a carb sitting in the airstream and doing what it was supposed to do without any fuss.

For fleet buyers and small operators, that kind of setup was quite acceptable, cheap, and proven. Independent mechanics could easily deal with carbureted engines and find parts everywhere. And it was quite straightforward to diagnose a flat spot without having to plug a tool into a diagnostic port. Companies were simply concerned about practicality and cost, and they had no interest in transient fuel control for the sake of it. They just wanted to make sure that their truck would keep on trucking, and if something went wrong, the guy down the street could easily fix it.

The simplicity of the carburetor helps to explain why it was able to hang on in some low-spec corners of the market, long after many vehicles had already ported into the digital age. Most new vehicles now featured electronic ignition which tied into emissions controls and OBD systems.

But some outliers did remain, even if they were trying to squeak under the required emissions numbers with some difficulty.

Isuzu’s Pickup was never going to be historically significant, and it was just another modest four-cylinder from a simple era. It had plenty of adequate torque down low, and the characteristics of a carbureted engine. There'd be a small amount of hesitation just off idle, but the expected surge would arrive as the accelerator pump did its thing. And it ran well enough, without too much attention to efficiency, while quietly helping the world to move on.

Subaru’s Justy, Old-School SUVs, And Other Pretenders

Some enthusiasts suggest that other cars may claim the title of last carbureted vehicle in America, and if you re-frame the question, you can expose some different answers. They might overlook a basic truck like an Isuzu Pickup and point to some late 1980s or early 1990s hatchbacks that seemed to cling on to carbs as long as they could. Subaru’s Justy may come up in conversation, while at the same time others may point to some old-school luxury SUVs like Jeep's SJ Grand Wagoneer that may have kept carbureted engines alive for a little longer than others in that sector.

But the answer to a hypothetical trivia question on this subject was always likely to involve a basic and anonymous pickup truck as, after all, carbs have always been famously linked with the most entry-level forms of transportation. They were easy devices for the everyman who could rebuild a carburetor on their kitchen table if they needed to.

Sources: Bring A Trailer, CARB, Hagerty.

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This article originally appeared on CarBuzz and is republished here with permission.