Shops

A list of shops offering parts specifically for Geo Storm and Isuzu cars.



Orient Speed
Orient Speed was a factory supported tuner, supplying many of the fiberglass and plastic spoilers and grilles to Isuzu for special edition Geminis. They offered a complete line of performance parts which are still highly sought after. At one point during the 80’s, they had an export office in Los Angeles, California, solely dedicated to the purchase of USDM Isuzu and Geo parts, to be shipped back to Japan, to be sold in their shop. By the mid 90’s, Orient Speed had disappeared.

Aquarius Sports
Aquarius is located outside Kobe, Japan, and is owned by Mr. Akihiro Kohigashi. Mr. Kohigashi is a professional touring car driver who drove for several factory backed racing teams in the 1980’s and 1990’s, including Katayuki Racing Service (KRS) and Isuzu Sports Car Club (ISCC) in the N1 Endurance and Japan Touring Car Challenge series. He maintains a-half-dozen Gemini race cars. Aquarius is famous for their engine building and 1.8 liter Piazza JT221 race engines for Geminis.
Mr. Kohigashi is a craftsman who does everything by hand, without notes or drawings. He is a true artist and does beautiful work, but everything he does is custom-made-to-order, one-off, and usually requiring that the vehicle be in his shop to modified.

Open Road
Open Road is located outside Tokyo, Japan, and is owned by Mr. Masami Sugiyama. Mr. Sugiyama is a professional rally driver, who drove for the Team Isuzu factory program in the 1980’s and 1990’s. He won the A7 Class at the 1983 Lombard RAC Rally (Britain) driving an Isuzu Aska (its debut race). He is the foremost expert on tuning the Nishiboric rear suspension of the Gemini JT1 (Geo Storm) and still maintains several Gemini rally cars. Open Road is a rally prep shop, requiring the vehicle to be in their shop for modification.

Funny Factory
Funny Factory was involved in the Gemini Castor Cup races of the 80’s and 90’s, and developed a wide range of racing parts for Geminis. In recent years, they have moved heavily into BMW parts. They may still offer some parts on a custom-made-to-order basis. The most recent comments from the Japanese Isuzu community were that several people were very upset about the long turnaround to receive parts after paying.

Speed Garage G5 – Geminist
Speed Garage G5 offered several aero kits and performance parts for Gemini. They are most known for their Gemini Coupe (Geo Storm) aero kit nicknamed the “Little Camaro”. They have since transitioned mostly to aero kits and interior dress up accessories for vans and more common cars. Isuzu parts may still be available on a custom-made-to-order basis.

Isuzu-Sports – AKA: Eagle Sayama, AKA: Tokyo-GTClub
Isuzu-Sports is a large restoration shop located in Saitama, Japan and owned by Koji Okane. It was established in the mid to late 1990’s (after Isuzu ceased producing cars) and has no apparent connection to Isuzu’s factory racing program, or participation in organized racing. It is operated as part of a used automobile sales company. They offer some very expensive items for 1960’s Isuzu cars, such as exhaust systems ($1400+), headers, and shock absorbers. But they offer nothing for the 90’s era cars, or Geo Storm. Their products are arguably top quality, but undersized for performance and racing purposes. Isuzu-Sports operates primarily as a restoration shop and auto sales lot for 1960’s Isuzu, Nissan, and Toyota cars.

BC Concepts
BC Concepts of Brookfield, Illinois, was run by Jason Vasquez. For a short time it was promoted by Jason Yuhas (formerly of StormOwners), who pushed several companies, in an attempt to get a piece of the Geo Storm parts business. Mr. Yuhas would promote a company on the website, demand that the company owner provide technical support on his internet forum, and expected that he would then receive free parts and a percentage of gross sales. When the kick-backs never materialized, he would banish the company and owner from his website and cut all ties. Mr. Yuhas parted ways with BC Concepts in 2002, when he was refused his demand for free parts in exchange for promoting the BC Concepts.
http://www.network54.com/Forum/46411/message/1013523980/Thanks+guys....I+didn%27t+even+know
BC Concepts did not develop any new parts for Geo Storm cars, instead operating mostly as a reseller of generic and low quality products from J.C.Whitney and NOPI. They attempted to knock off copies of other company’s products, but found that they could not match the quality or price of the originals.
BC Concepts published dyno results from a supposed full race engine with extensively ported head, claiming a 17 HP gain when compared to the “before” test, which was performed on the thoroughly worn out engine, prior to rebuilding. However, the APG Performance dyno results published by BC Concepts show 4 HP less than Jason Vasquez’s written claims, and when compared to the dyno measurements of a freshly rebuilt, stock spec engine, with header and exhaust, the BC Concepts racing engine measured a 2 HP loss compared to a freshly rebuilt, stock spec engine.
BC Concepts was gone by 2005.

StormStylz
StormStylz was run by Shawn Hemmesch in North Dakota. The company became intertwined with another aftermarket parts dealer named F5 Performance, also of North Dakota. F5 Performance and StormStylz operated between 2002 and 2005, and both are now closed. StormStylz was another company promoted by Jason Yuhas (formerly of StormOwners). It is unclear if Mr. Yuhas did finally receive his free parts and kickbacks from StormStylz, because he did not banish the company from his website before the company closed.
StormStylz operated mostly as a group buy program for hot-air-intakes, half sized radiators (with a cooling capacity ten percent below the stock radiator), and Pacesetter headers. StormStylz organized several additional group buys for products that were never delivered, including custom made Impulse RS AWD rear struts. Around 2004, StormStylz stopped delivering products to customers, but continued accepting orders and customer’s checks.
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/F5_Performance_11
By the end of 2006, Shawn Hemmesch, StormStylz, and F5 Performance had disappeared.

Robie The Robot / Robbie The Ricer / Robie The Ricer / Ready To Rice / Race Track Reject
RTR is/was located in Colorado, and is/was owned by Robie Blair. Br. Blair's profession is computer and internet consulting and server administration. Mr. Blair's professional education is a bachelor's degree in Business and Computer Information Systems from noted mail-order-diploma-mill "University of Phoenix".
Additional Note: As of July 29, 2015, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has placed the University of Phoenix under investigation for defrauding the GI Bill and the Federal Student Loan Program out of more than One-Half- Billion-Dollars, bilking the government programs while providing students with worthless degrees and credit hours that do not qualify for transfer to legitimate colleges and universities.
"Robie the Robot" is not in fact a registered business in the state of Colorado, but rather just a domain name registration, operated under Mr. Blair's one man company "BlairCraft", which is listed as a website design company. There is no known record of Mr. Blair ever studying or receiving any degrees in any areas of the design of physical objects (anything outside of websites), engineering, manufacturing, or construction. And there is no known record of Mr. Blair ever attending an accredited brick-and-mortar university.

Mr. Robie Blair states that he first purchased a Geo Storm in 2000. He takes a decidedly duct-tape-and-bailing-wire approach to modifying cars, with most of it looking like it came out of a J.C. Whitney catalog. His claim to fame seems to be transplanting a Impulse RS engine into a Base model Geo Storm, installing a larger turbo, intercooler, and nitrous system, and increasing the quarter mile time by .282 seconds over that of a stock Impulse RS (yes, you read that correctly, he made the car slower than it would have been if he had simply driven the donor car, or put a completely unmodified, stock Impulse RS Turbo engine into the transplant recipient car).
Surprisingly enough, Mr. Blair is/was brave enough, or ballsy enough, to start selling the same parts that made his car slower, to other people. Mr. Blair runs/ran RTR as a hobby. His biggest selling items appeared to be $210 slip-on coilover sleeves (identical to those found on Ebay for $40), and thin-wall-hammered-end strut braces.

Only one reference to racing can be found for Mr. Robie Blair. (Not to be confused with "Robbie Blair" [two Bs] of Pennsylvania, who is a legitimate, successful, professional Dirt Track Champ Car driver.)
On July 30, 2000, Mr. "Robie Blair" entered a Geo Storm in H Stock (Road Tire) class at a Rocky Mountain Solo Series event. The results were rather miserable, finishing 130th out of 140 entrants.
http://www.rmsolo.org/results/00/rmss0730.txt
By contrast, Mr. Blair devoted three pages to describing in minute detail, how he painted the rear suspension of his car yellow. One would expect Mr. Blair to make mention of any further racing experience, if any exists.
If this were a first event in a long history of autocrossing, that might indicate something very different. However, since this is the only race entry record that can be found, and the vehicle entered was in a Stock class, it seems clear that the vehicle was not modified at the time of the event, and there is every appearance that, since the driver turned a less than stellar time, he simply gave up and never entered another autocross event. This is certainly not an indication that Mr. Blair has any experience tuning Geo Storms or Isuzu cars for track use.

(NOTE: The SCCA regions in and around Colorado do not run separate autocross programs, and instead they participate in a collective and cooperative program under the name “Rocky Mountain Solo Series”. Every autocross event within 200 miles of Mr. Blair is run under the RMSS and all results posted on their website at http://www.rmsolo.org/. This is definitely not a case of cherry picking the results from a bad racing day in a long career, or a single participation in a neighboring region. Based on the evidence, this single event is the total of Mr. Blair’s entire experience in organized racing competition.)


With all of the contradictory stories that Mr. Blair has come up with, the $64,000 question has to be: “How many 400 pound women do you have to put into the back of a 200+ HP, DOHC, T-Bird turbocharged, front-mount-intercooled, nitrous injected, 2,400 pound Geo Storm, to get it slowed down so much that it will only pull 15.882 seconds in the quarter mile?” (The stock 160 HP Impulse RS AWD does the same in 15.6 seconds, even with the added power loss of the all wheel drive system.)

Isuzuperformance
Isuzuperformance is located in St. Louis, Missouri and is owned by Bill Luton. Mr. Luton has been performance tuning Isuzu cars since 1986. He created the Isupage website in 1995, which remains the most comprehensive source of historical and technical information about Isuzu cars, and he was one of the founders of the Isuzu enthusiast movement in North America. He earned a degree in design from Kansas State University in 1997, and established Isuzuperformance immediately after. He personally built the aftermarket for Isuzu and Geo Storm performance and racing parts in North America, focusing on racing level performance and show quality appearance. He sold many items at-or-below cost, in order to build up the owners’ community and popularity of the cars, by showing the modifying possibilities and performance potential of the cars. He is responsible for designing and developing most of what is available for these cars.
Mr. Luton began drag racing his Isuzu cars in 1997, regularly attending Test-and-Tune nights at Gateway International Raceway to test drivetrain components. The more noteworthy Isuzu and Geo road and drag racing cars in North America were extensively equipped with Isuzuperformance parts, including the yellow Geo Storm of Steve Lockett (AKA: RacerStev and RoadRacerX) and both the white I-Mark RS and green Impulse RS of Mike Kuriger (AKA: AWDIsuzu and Isuzu-Mods).
Mr. Luton began autocrossing and became a member of the Sports Car Club of America in 1999, primarily as a venue for product testing. Though he makes no claim to be a very good driver (emphatically stating the contrary whenever asked), he holds numerous St. Louis Region class championships in D Street Prepared, D Modified, and X Prepared classes, campaigning Isuzu cars against Lotus Elises, Exiges, Sevens, Shelby Daytona Coupes, Cobras, Mustangs, Honda S2000s, Civics, Preludes, JDM CRX SIs, JDM Integra Type Rs, Mazda Miatas, and Fiat X1/9s. In the process, Mr. Luton gained a vast knowledge of building and modifying Isuzu and Geo Storm suspension, chassis, drivetrain, engine, and chassis building the parts for these vehicles from scratch, and not settling to make them merely competitive, but turning them into class winners.

A club rivalry split the Isuzu community shortly after the turn of the century.
Jennifer Williams (formerly of IsuzuStyle), Jason Yuhas (formerly of StormOwners), and several others, sought to take over the Isuzu club scene. Mr. Luton is a member of, and Isuzuperformance financially supports, the IsuzuWeb car club. When Mr. Luton refused to provide financial backing to the rival clubs, Ms. Williams and the other members of the rival clubs, started a libel campaign against Isuzuperformance and Mr. Luton. Ms. Williams, Mr. Yuhas, and most of the other rival club members from the time of that schism, disappeared from the community long ago. Ms. Williams failed to deliver on numerous grand promises, wrecked several cars, discovered that the Isuzu community was not going to provide her with the opportunities for self aggrandizement that she needed, and she moved on to wreck Honda cars and divide their enthusiast community. Mr. Yuhas would forge a deep divide between his Storm club and the rest of the Isuzu community, and later split the Storm owner community multiple times, including the formation of StormAddicts club and the Geo Storm Performance Resource Forum, and Mr. Yuhas' eventual banishment from his own club, due to his territorial attitude and belligerent behavior.
But their libel campaign has been carried on, eagerly repeated by the dwindling members of the only remaining rival club, though these relative newcomers have never had any dealings with Isuzuperformance. They have not met Mr. Luton, Ms. Williams, or Mr. Yuhas. And they do not know anything about the club rivalry that motivated the tall tails they continue repeating. Few of these people have any understanding of how they continue to be used as pawns, in of an unsuccessful petty vendetta, that was started after a failed car club takeover attempt, and ended a decade ago.


As Isuzu cars move from daily transportation to weekend toys and restoration projects, Isuzuperformance has transitioned from the consumer market, to limited availability racing parts, but remains the best source of performance parts for Geo Storm and Isuzu cars.



External Link - Isuzu Car Performance Parts Price Comparsion
The IsuzuStyle website provides a very good comparison of product features and pricing, of performance parts for Isuzu and Geo Storm cars.

Click here to return to the Geo Storm Owners Page Tuning Index.