Suzuki JIMNY 02 SOFT TOP
By Andy Enright
Its not often that a car can genuinely surprise you. Such is the efficiency of the PR process these days, we often feel as if we know new cars inside out before we ever clap eyes on them. Therefore its rare for a car to utterly confound your expectations. Suzukis Jimny 02 Soft Top is just such a vehicle.
The fact that we have a soft spot for both small 4x4s and soft-top cars should, by all accepted logic, make the
Suzuki Jimny a far successful vehicle than it is. Ill admit to harbouring some reservations about the car as, faced with a 250 mile round trip, it promised to be about as much fun as an attack of trench foot. After the journey, Id tell anybody who would listen how wrong I was. Of over 200 new cars Id driven in the past year, the Suzuki Jimny made the top ten on sheer fun factor alone.
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In its Jimny 02 Soft Top guise,
Suzuki have kept the price affordable - £10,499 to be exact. This includes alloy wheels, front fog lamps, some two-tone paintwork which youll either love or hate and a stereo upgrade that now includes a radio/CD player. So why is the Jimny so much fun? Granted, the roly-poly handling wont endear it to those who may see it as a replacement for their warm hatch, but around town the upright driving position and narrow overall width make it a hoot to zip through traffic in. The rugged four-wheel drive mechanicals mean that the Jimny can tackle surprisingly serious off-road terrain and fit between obstacles that would have a
Land Rover owner looking for an alternate route.
Flick the gear selector out of all-wheel drive and the Jimny reverts not to predictable front wheel drive but good old rear wheel drive. Find a well-beaten patch of mud and you can perform low-speed manoeuvres that Colin McRae would be proud of and which will have you grinning from ear to ear.
"Find a well-beaten patch of mud and you can perform low-speed manoeuvres that Colin McRae would be proud."
The roof, whilst not in the same league as modern one switch roadster roofs is nevertheless fairly easy to get to grips with. For optimum flexibility, the hood is in two parts. The front section, above the driver and front
seat passenger, can be folded back targa style from within the vehicle and closed again in a matter of seconds. A separate pram style hood covers the rear passenger area and load space.
Once the clear, zipped-in PVC side and rear windows have been removed, this roof section too can also be folded and stowed in a single, easy action and reinstated just as rapidly. It sounds arcane, but you get used to it pretty quickly and its always fun to see newbies wrestling with it like a recalcitrant deckchair. Handling around twisty tarmac is not as accomplished as the sharpest superminis, but its quite good enough to satisfy most. Besides, there's always the bonus, denied to conventional road users, that when the fancy takes you, the muddy stuff beckons. Like the original Vitara, four-wheel drive is selectable (these days via Suzuki's 'Drive Select' system), a surprisingly painless operation that can be accomplished whilst on the move. Over reasonably rough terrain, the little Suzuki feels very confident, thanks to its tough ladder frame chassis, a standard design feature that many small off roaders lack; this renders cars like
Toyota's RAV4 effectively useless for serious off road work. You'll have to accept, however, that the Jimny won't ultimately have the wherewithal to reach the places that larger off roaders can. At least not in normal circumstances. Over in Iceland, they prefer light, simple little 4x4s like this because they don't sink into the snow: in soft boggy conditions here, it might well be the same. One drawback of all this off roading prowess is that it necessitates a harder, more jiggly ride. Again, it's not something that will bother you too much on short journeys, where the light steering, progressive brakes and smooth gearchange make the little Suzuki easy to live with. The cabin, though dominated by grey plastic, is equally user-friendly, with a neat, simple layout that will confuse no one capable of operating a payphone. For a small car, the driving position is excellent, accommodating for anyone up to a six-footer, with plenty of head and legroom. Write the Suzuki Jimny 02 Soft Top off as something not sophisticated enough for your requirements and you could well be right.
Thing is, youd also be missing out on a whole heap of fun. It depends what you buy a car for. If you buy one to impress the neighbours, look elsewhere. If, on the other hand, you want something that offers a bigger fun per pound quotient than anything out there, you know what to do.
FACTS AT A GLANCE
CAR: Suzuki Jimny 02 Soft Top
PRICE: £10,499 - on the road
INSURANCE GROUP: 7D
PERFORMANCE: Max Speed 87mph / 0-60mph 16.0s
FUEL CONSUMPTION: (urban) 27.7mpg / (extra urban) 39.8mpg / (combined) 34.4mpg
WILL IT FIT IN YOUR GARAGE?: Length/Width/Heightmm 3625/1600/1670
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