This Was The Last Carbureted Engine Sold Latest In America

Ah yes, the carburetor. A humble device that mechanically mixes fuel and air, which gets sucked down the intake manifold and into the cylinders to feed the interior combustion process. The carburetor, or simply carb for brief, had an extended run because the de facto fuel metering device on American automobiles, starting with the Duryea brothers’ converted horse buggy in 1893 — several years ahead of Henry Ford’s barely less rudimentary Quadricycle. 

Fast forward 100 years and the writing was on the wall for the carburetor. By the late Eighties, California was mandating stricter emissions control equipment on all vehicles sold in that state through the California Air Resources Board, which amusingly abbreviates to CARB. California is such a big marketplace for automakers that it’s often simpler and inexpensive to make all production cars intended for U.S. markets compliant with California’s rules than to make a rather different configuration for the Golden State. On a related note, California may not give you the option to set its own unique emissions standards, but we digress. 

The opposite death knell for the carb was the implementation of the OBD-II onboard diagnostic system in California by 1994 and nationwide by 1996. For many who aren’t mechanically inclined, the port to connect with the OBD-II system is that trapezoidal dongle that is under the motive force’s side dashboard of your modern vehicle. Computer-controlled carburetors were attempted as a stopgap measure prior to perfecting economical fuel injection within the Eighties, but proved troublesome for each motorists and mechanics alike. 

By the ultimate decade of the twentieth century, domestic automakers had abandoned the carburetor in all of their vehicles aside from two. First up is the Ford LTD Crown Victoria equipped with the larger 5.8-liter V8 engine. While the regular 5.0-powered LTD Crown Victoria had long been equipped with fuel injection, the 5.8-liter 351 Windsor soldiered on with a two-barrel carb for fleet sales — resembling Crown Vic cop cars – throughout the 1991 model yr. 

Jalopnik readers probably won’t be surprised to listen to that the opposite carburetor-equipped American automotive in the marketplace in 1991 was the Jeep Grand Wagoneer (SJ), which looked prefer it teleported straight from 1963. By its final production yr the SJ was all the way down to only one powerplant, a 360 cubic inch AMC V8. Perched on top was an anemic two-barrel carburetor provided by Ford’s Motorcraft division because, well, why not? After all, this text is concerning the last carbureted engine sold in America, not only produced here. So let’s move on, we could?

Regardless of the onboard diagnostic equipment mandate looming large, a couple of Japanese automakers opted to proceed selling carbureted vehicles right up until the bitter end. The first recipients of the antiquated fuel delivery device were bargain basement compact pickup trucks and SUVs. For instance, Mazda’s B2200 pickup retained a carb in non-California trucks until that model was discontinued after 1993. 

Still basking within the afterglow of its wildly successful Joe Isuzu promoting campaign, Yokohama-based Isuzu also continued foisting carburetor-equipped masterpieces onto the American motoring public well into the Nineteen Nineties. Take, for instance, the base-engine-equipped 1993 Amigo, a form of Wrangler-esque member of the two-door SUV club. Isuzu also has the excellence of creating the very last carbureted vehicle sold latest in America. The identical 2.3-liter four-cylinder that powered the 1993 Amigo was also found throughout 1994 in very basic rear-wheel drive iterations of the brand’s pickup truck, literally called Isuzu Pickup.

So there you could have it. The 1994 Isuzu Pickup with a base engine was the last carbed passenger motorcar sold latest on U.S. soil. Automakers can have been nudged into fuel injection by California’s rigid emissions monitoring and nationwide OBD-II requirements, however the change was indisputably for the higher. Fuel injection is more efficient, each when it comes to increasing fuel economy and lowering tailpipe emissions. It also makes more power than carburetors while requiring less maintenance and tuning. Finally, fuel injection is more readily adaptable to changes in operating conditions, resembling temperature and altitude. 

RIP to the carb — it had run.