1989 NM Rio Grande XT 2.0 technically

in case ya'll need a reminder of what NM is, NM is a company under Guardian that make economical quirky little cars, and the Rio Grande is no exception even if it wasn't NM's originally. the Rio grande started life under Katsuora, a Japanese company in direct contention with Guardian but, for almost a decade did nothing with it. After a while of Guardian begging for the rights to build off of what Katsuora had, they finally caved and let Guardian have the Rio Grande.. which they promptly pawned off on NM because "it's named after one of your rivers, why dont you take it" and NM couldnt do anyhting about it, so they took one of Guardian's standard 4 cylinders, put it in the existing Katsuora platform and slapped the front facia of the newest Sandsailor at the time on it, calling it good and rushing it out to market

DID I MENTION IT'S MID ENGINED???

TL/DR (bc it needs it)
unwanted Japanese posterchild ute pawned off to America