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A catchy name is no guarantee of success in today’s competitive automobile market. But when combined with a product offering world-class quality and technology, it becomes a good way to bet.

Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. is betting its money on the catchy name Paseo (pronounced pa-say-o), the nameplate of a new 1992 Toyota two-plus-two sport coupe. Toyota Motor Corp.’s newest automobile is a zippy little coupe that offers carefree driving enhanced by advanced technology.

“Toyota hasn’t had a really sporty coupe,” said Pat O’Brien, vice president of Tom O’Brien Toyota. “The Paseo takes the place of the Corolla SR5, but at lesser cost.”

Actually, the price of the Paseo is well under that of the SR5, something on the order of $3,000 to $5,000.

“The base (price of the Paseo) is under $10,000,” O’Brien said. “One with some equipment on it will run a little more. I’ll say most of them will sell at around $11,000.”

The ’92 Paseo comes with a dual-cam, four-cylinder, 16-valve engine, excellent fuel economy, some rather slick-looking aerodynamic styling, and front-wheel drive.

The new car is relatively small. It’s light. And it’s powerful for its class. That’s a trio of factors that spell performance, especially when the initial design purpose of the coupe was to make it a fun-to-drive car.

Toyota has built a new engine specifically for this model. Following the traditional speedway technology of double-overhead cams and four valves per cylinder, the 1.5-liter 100-horsepower power plant will not be offered in any other Toyota product sold on the American market.

With a five-speed manual transmission, the Paseo’s curb weight is only 2,070 pounds. That gives a weight-to-power ratio of 20.7-to-1, considered in performance circles a pretty good set of numbers for going swiftly.

The technology doesn’t stop there. A four-speed,electronically controlled automatic transmission is available. Toyota says the Paseo is the first car in its class to have such a gearbox.

The four-speed’s curb weight is just 2,160 pounds, an increase that isn’t expected to have much effect on acceleration.

The limited-production car was previewed Tuesday by Indianapolis Toyota dealers. It is expected to be in local showrooms in about another week.

“Availability at first, of course, is going to be limited,” said Gary Hohmann, new car sales manager for Butler Toyota. “But they’re talking about producing 25,000 for the remainder of 1991. So there should be pretty good availability later on.”

The big-sedan crowd probably will consider the car tiny; its wheelbase is 93.7 inches, and its overall length is 163.2 inches. But its specifications are similar to the Honda CRX DX, the Hyundai Scoupe and the Geo Storm, the models that Toyota considers as competition for the Paseo.

While the Paseo has a back seat for two passengers, a guess is that youngsters are going to be a lot more comfortable there than a pair of full-sized adults.

“With a back seat, it’s going to be muc h better for insurance purposes,” Hohmann said. “They put the back seat in there even though they know it’s not going to be used a whole lot. Those two-seaters are just killers on insurance, and that’s what hurts the young kids now.”

Something that isn’t going to hurt anybody is the fuel economy. The Paseo’s fuel consumption rating with the standard five-speed manual gearbox is 28 miles per gallon in the city and 34 mpg on the highway. If the optional automatic transmission is on board, the rating is 25 mpg in the city and 31 mpg on the highway.

Independent engineering tests have stated that the car is easy to drive, is highly maneuverable and provides a firm but reasonably decent ride.

The rack-and-pinion steering is quick, taking only 2.7 turns of the steering wheel to go from full right to full left, or vice-versa. Fortunately, power steering is standard, or a driver probablywould need the arms of Atlas to turn the front driving wheels at slow speed.

Toy ota regards the ’92 Paseo as its entry-level car, one that is going to sell between $10,000 and $12,000 depending on equipment. While 25,000 units are projected for the rest of this year, about 40,000 cars are expected to be produced for the year 1992. At that level, supply should be adequate for Toyota dealers nation-wide. The local agencies are Beck, Butler, O’Brien and Tom Wood Toyota.