Suzuki Vitara

The Geo brand included California-built Corollas, Japan-built I-Marks, and Canada-built Sidekicks. Here's one of the latter type, spotted in a Denver self-service wrecking yard.

The death of Suzuki's American automotive operations can be chalked up to many, many things. One thing it cannot be blamed on, however, is the arguable goodness of its products. The company's criminally underrated offerings included the Kizashi sedan, the SX4 compact and your author's personal favorite, the Grand Vitara.

Yesterday Suzuki announced that a refreshed Japanese-market Suzuki Escudo will bow for 2013, sporting a new front fascia and wheels and dropping its rear spare tire carrier, among other tweaks. Suzuki's American PR staff has confirmed to Autoblog that we will be getting some of the updates here as well, in the form of a facelifted 2013 Suzuki G

While Suzuki no longer sells two-door versions of the Grand Vitara SUV in the North American market they are still available overseas. The UK market is now getting a new diesel engine for the two door variant supplied by Renault. The 1.9L four cylinder turbo diesel is rated at 127hp/221lb-ft of torque and has fuel efficiency of 32mpg combined. Unfortunately the CO2 emissions are an unimpressive 195 g/km and no diesel will be available in US models.