My Intro to the Tracker-Sidekick – Part 1

I have to credit my wife for my first exposure to the Geo/Chevy Tracker – Suzuki Sidekick breed.

We were on holiday in Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands and wanted to tour the island so, she suggested that I rent a “Jeep”. Being from North America, we thought that everything square and 4×4 was a jeep.  Wrong!

I ambled down to the hotel desk and rented what turned out to be a Suzuki Jimny. The weather was fantastic and the island has some very good roads and others that are pretty windy and bumpy. Great stuff for trying one of these out.

The model I had was an automatic so you had to work like crazy to work up any kind of steam, but my wife hates speed, so that’s okay. Man, that thing was a blast to drive, with the sunroof back and the top down, it was just great. I could almost hear the Beach Boys singing, see the surfboards sticking out the back and the surf!

Even though it only really takes a day to get around the island, I rented the Jimny for an extra day, just to buzz around in it.

Then, came the end of the vacation and the Suzuki was replaced by the family Mazda, becoming just a fond vacation memory like so many others. You know, the ones that you only remember when you pull out the pictures and then think “Hey, that thing was fun!”

That was back in 2002.

Tune in to the next post to see how I wound up with an ’03 Chevy Tracker as my ’09 fun car!

It’s a strange roundabout journey.

In the meantime, enjoy yourself and,

Make it a great day!

MarcL