Last year, I spotted a final-model-year Geo Metro with an astonishing 342,694 miles on its odometer in a Colorado car graveyard. This got me to thinking about the fascinating place of the Metro (including its relatives and ancestors) in global automotive history.

How best to tell this story? The junkyards of the Denver area have provided the outline this month, with this trio of Suzuki Cultus family members spotted during the last few weeks.

1992 Pontiac Firefly in Colorado wrecking yard

Pontiac Firefly in junkyard online inventory search

I frequently search all the online inventory sites of the Colorado Front Range junkyards, so that I don't miss out on interesting new arrivals.

While looking at available Pontiac models at Littleton U-Pull, a model name I'd never seen in all my years of junkyard exploration jumped out at me: Firefly! It should go without saying that I was on my way there within minutes.

1992 Pontiac Firefly in Colorado wrecking yard

GM began selling the first-generation Suzuki Cultus in the United States with Chevrolet Sprint badges in 1985. In Canada, it was sold as both the Suzuki Forsa and as the Pontiac Firefly.

1987 Chevrolet Sprint ER in California junkyard

The Sprint was a gas-sipping machine that arrived during a period of crashing oil prices, so sales weren't incredibly strong (though there was a hot-rod turbocharged version). Its final model year was 1988, which coincided with the launch of the second-generation Cultus in Japan.

1992 Pontiac Firefly in Colorado wrecking yard

For the United States, the second-gen Cultus appeared as a 1990 model under the new Geo brand, which had been established in order to sell cars built or designed by Toyota, Isuzu, and Suzuki. This was the Metro. In Canada, the Pontiac Firefly name used for its predecessor was kept going.

1992 Pontiac Firefly in Colorado wrecking yard

The Firefly and Metro were essentially identical (although the Firefly got the 1.3-liter "big-block" four-cylinder engine a couple of years earlier than its counterpart south of the border), and both were built on the same assembly line at CAMI Automotive in Ontario.

1992 Pontiac Firefly on Colorado street

A local Metro aficionado (or should I say Cultus cultist?) who follows me on Instagram saw my photos of the discarded Firefly and contacted me immediately.

He had owned that very car a few years back (he had no idea why it had ended up at the U-Pull) and explained a bit of its history: It had been brought to Denver by a DU employee when it was new-ish, then spent a few years in Missouri and was purchased there by him and brought back to Colorado.

1992 Pontiac Firefly in Colorado wrecking yard

Apparently, it never had any registration problems in the United States, which makes sense given that its VIN will likely pop up in DMV computers on this side of the border as a 1992 Geo Metro. Littleton U-Pull employees knew its true identity, though.

1992 Pontiac Firefly in Colorado wrecking yard

So, a Suzuki that spent its life in one Canadian province and two American states ends its career with a Colorado moose sticker on the rear window, which seems fitting.

1992 Pontiac Firefly in Colorado wrecking yard

I found this little Sasquatch figurine in the Firefly's center console, so I took it home as a junkyard souvenir.

Homies toys in Murilee Martin's garden

In the background, the lonesome horn of a train blows as a Royal Pine Little Tree in the Firefly twists in the High Plains breeze.

1992 Pontiac Firefly in Colorado wrecking yard

The speedometer and odometer are metric, of course, and so we can see that this car covered 353,564 kilometers during its career on the roads of our continent. That's 219,694 miles, which is respectable but not enough to get this car into the Murilee Martin Junkyard Odometer Hall of Fame (which requires a minimum of 300,000 miles for inclusion).

After you watch a couple of Firefly commercials, take a look at the rest of this Colorado Firefly's photos in the gallery below:

1990 Geo Metro base hatchback in Denver junkyard

Then, on Monday, I found one apiece white 1990 and 1997 Geo Metros at the same Denver wrecking yard. As examples of the first and last model years of the Geo Metro, they are a good way of illustrating the story of the cheapest vehicle in GM's short-lived brand.

1990 Geo Metro base hatchback in Denver junkyard

We'll start with the '90, which is a base five-door hatchback (which Geo called the "four-door hatchback sedan"). This car had an MSRP of $6,950, or about $17,537 in 2025 dollars. The very cheapest 1990 Metro, the XFi three-door hatchback, listed at $5,995 ($15,127 after inflation).

1990 Geo Metro base hatchback in Denver junkyard

For the 1990 through 1994 model years, the only engine available in the Geo Metro was a 1.0-liter SOHC straight-three. The version of this engine bolted into the fuel-economy-king Metro XFi was rated at 49 hp (making the 1993 Metro XFi the final production car available in the United States with under 50 hp, including EVs), while the rest of the 1990-1994 Metro lineup got 55 horses and 58 lb-ft from their three-bangers.

1990 Geo Metro base hatchback in Denver junkyard

A "big-block" 1.3-liter four-cylinder engine with 70 hp became available in US-market Metros after the car got a redesign and enlargement for the 1995 model year. That engine was available in the Suzuki-badged Metro twin, the Swift, from the beginning.

1993 Suzuki Swift GT in Colorado wrecking yard

1990 Geo Metro base hatchback in Denver junkyard

With the five-speed manual transmission (which this car has), the base Metro achieved 45 city and 50 highway miles per gallon.

The XFi, with its taller gearing and efficiency-tuned engine, managed to get an amazing 53 city and 58 highway mpg. The only other US-market 1990 car that could rival those gas-sipping figures was the Honda CRX HF and its 49/52 miles per gallon.

1990 Geo Metro base hatchback in Denver junkyard

This car was built in Japan in January of 1990, making it one of the very first Geo Metros sold. The Metro didn't get a six-digit odometer until its last couple of model years, so we can't know if this car traversed 59,595 miles or 559,595 miles during its 35 years on the road. If you want to know more about this car and see more photos, check out the gallery below:

1997 Geo Metro in Colorado wrecking yard

Just a few rows over from the '90 Metro hatchback at the Denver U-Pull-&-Pay is this final-year '97 Metro LSi sedan. This was the most expensive Metro available that year, with a $9,850 price tag (about $19,902 in today's dollars). The base three-door Metro hatchback for 1997 had an MSRP of $8,580 ($17,336 now).

1997 Geo Metro LSi sedan in Colorado wrecking yard

This car is loaded with fancy standard and optional equipment, by Metro standards. Under the hood is the four-cylinder engine (only the base hatchback got the three-cylinder plant for '97), and it's bolted to a luxurious three-speed automatic transmission. I owned a '96 Metro with this powertrain for a brief period and it was remarkably slow but not intolerable.

1997 Geo Metro LSi sedan in Colorado wrecking yard

It even has air conditioning, which was a $785 option ($1,586 today).

1997 Geo Metro LSi sedan in Colorado wrecking yard

The ignition switch was punched out and crudely wired up to dangle between the driver's feet, meaning either this car was a theft victim or the recipient of a hasty field-expedient repair during its final days.

1997 Geo Metro LSi sedan in Colorado wrecking yard

This red tag from the Colorado State police for being abandoned at an Interstate 70 rest area suggests the former theory.

1997 Geo Metro LSi sedan in Colorado wrecking yard

It had just over 180,000 miles at the end.

00 Chevrolet Metro.JPG

GM killed the Geo brand after 1997, rebadging the Prizm, Tracker, and Metro as Chevrolets. Production of the Chevy Metro continued through 2001, while the Tracker managed to hang on until 2004.

In the rest of the world, though, the second-generation Cultus kept going for many additional years. The final versions were the 2015 Changan Suzuki Lingyang in China and the 2016 Suzuki Margalla in Pakistan.