Aside from the mental little Nissan, subcompact crossovers tend to live rather boring lives in the hands of sorority girls who thought the HR-V was more suited to them because the “Fit just doesn’t fit me ya know?” Luckily for the segment, there exists a group of consumers who will actually put these vehicles to commercial worthy work… There’s just one problem, they’re in Costa Rica.


(WARNING: This warning is here to warn you that a warning is currently being warned… oh, and something about a lot of nonsense in this article...)


Driving down the newly paved highways out of the city, one will quickly notice that this tropical land is host to a major infestation of small japanese CUVs from the 90s. Samurai and Sidekicks hide around every corner, acting as the footsoldiers for villages who lack a Hilux. While these would normally rust away in the garage of a disgruntled convict who now works at Baskin Robbins; down in Costa Rica they get to clamber over hills and stumble down class three rapids. For evidence of their daily use, one just has to take a quick glance at the dash. Mileage on these diminutive warriors will easily make exotic owners feel queasy.


Photo Credit: RL GNZLZ via flickr

While Suzuki enjoys a large portion of this market, they are by no means the only combatants. Arguably their largest enemy is the army of Geo Trackers that control a sizable portion of the population. Ironically though, these competing vehicles are the byproduct of a 90s era toyobaru style partnership between Suzuki and Chevrolet (Geo’s corporate overlord) and are basically identical copies of one another. Unlike the Tracker that the creepy barber two doors down drives, most of these do not have questionable amounts of human hair in the back… it’s just dog fur! Costa Ricans prefer to fill the surprisingly large beds on these vehicles with useful things like toolboxes, tourist trinkets, and pineapple selling children.


Other contenders in the baby crossover ring include an old Land Cruiser, a Mitsubishi Montero that gets mistaken for an old Land Cruiser, and the RAV4 that killed an old Land Cruiser. The one major fault that keeps these from dominating the arena is their more common use of solid roofs that won’t leak, instead of the much more “reasonable” (and leaky) removable soft tops that the Suzuki/Geo juggernauts tend to employ. A larger wheelbase also brings them dangerously close to the 4Runner’s territory, which leaves them in the dust in terms of offroading and hauling capabilities, at least in stock configuration...


Ricardo Hammond, Jeremy Tonto Mono, and James De Mayo are among Costa Rica’s most “talented” mechanics. - Photo Credit: Top Gear


These tiny tikes really show their true potential once an enthusiast gets to tinkering. Costa Rica, like a Top Gear special, is home to a hidden group of master mechanics who use their magical powers to keep everything running in tip top shape. These wizards are able to take a simple Daihatsu Feroza and hammer it into a lifted, unicorn powered, flying river monster. If that sounds a lot like a suped up brodozer, its because it is, only in this case the modifications actually serve a purpose beyond making Randy Stevens look like the coolest vacuum salesman in the southeast.


At first glance it seems like this segment could only be created by the Japanese, (with a little help from the Torchinsky secret spices,) but in reality the unique car culture in Costa Rica played an even bigger part in transforming these baby utilitarians into the curiously toylike trucks seen scaling volcanoes all day long. In recent years these crossovers have, like their northern neighbors, put on a bit of weight, but the oil happy atmosphere around them has kept their spirits alive.

This author’s spirit animal is a 1979 Reliant Robin running on the tears of the BBC. The first time he drove... well he ended up ensnared in an electric fence with one less tire and two extra bolts. He also acts as the editor in chief of a high school newspaper, a title so prestigious that no one but other high school newspaper editors care about it.


Top Photo Credit: Anas Balushi via flickr

Unattributed photos were provided by the author (and shot in Costa Rica)