The outgoing Suzuki Swift is the automotive equivalent of hitting the sweet spot in the light car segment. That car managed to do everything right and even remain funky even in its twilight years – and who among us hasn’t dreamt of achieving that?
The new Swift is even better than that.
Of course, when a product isn’t broken this presents its own set of problems for the architects of its replacement. How do you fix it? Certainly not by provoking significant change – which is why, in the absence of side-by-side photographic evidence, you’d be forgiven for assuming the old Swift and its replacement were dizygotic twins. The stylistic differences are minor; you’d need to park the old and the new back-to-back to spot them all.
The outgoing Swift certainly kicked a major goal for style. The wraparound windscreen, oversized, elongated headlamps and assertive stance were – literally – the shape of things to come in light cars when the car was first introduced.
This new car might look the same, but it’s grown almost 100mm overall, with 50mm of that between the wheels, and it’s also slightly taller and wider. But you’d need to be a Suzuki trainspotting over-achiever to pick it. It's‘An evolution and not a revolution' and in this case it’s a good-news story.
Suzuki is no upstart. It’s been in the auto-building business since 1961, and is something of a virtuoso when it comes to making small cars, as well as supernova-esque two-wheelers and even marine engines. It does this very well.
In Australia when the new Swift arrives in February 2011. We’ll be getting an all-new 1.4-litre naturally aspirated four with 70kW at 6000rpm and 130Nm at 4000rpm – within a smidge of the outgoing Swift’s outputs but with significantly improved economy. That’s thanks mainly to a serious re-think of the engine’s internal friction, reduced by a range of engineering tweaks including an offset crank, lower friction rings and shimless tappets.
In the five-speed manual the official ADR fuel figure has dropped from 6.3 litres per 100km to 5.5, and in the four-speed auto the improvement is from 6.6 down to 6.2.
The 1.4 revs, flat-chat, to 6500rpm and features a wonderfully subtle soft rev limiter that maintains peak rpm until you wake up and decide to select the next gear. It does its best work over 3000rpm, delivering admirable mid-range urge. I don’t know about you, but when I hear the ‘1.4’ I start to think: ‘yawn’. Not so with the Swift – this engine is at the very least sufficiently engaging. It’s refined when you’re cruising and raucous when you’re punting. And it sounds alright, too. It’s not a WRX – but then, it will be less than half the price.
A new, 50 per cent stiffer body reinforced at key stress points with high-tensile steel up to six times stronger than the regular construction-grade stuff has helped, as has numerous suspension revisions and an upgrade to 15- and 16-inch wheels, depending on spec. (The outgoing Swift runs on 14s or 15s, depending on model.
Steering is new, too. It’s electric, but the feel is great and the gearing is set up to offer not much assistance close to on-centre, and less at the lock-to-lock extremities.
The five-speed manual is excellent, although the light car market must be on the cusp of accommodating six speeds with three pedals, and thankfully a full torque-converter four-speed auto, not a constant-velocity transmission. In terms of absolute performance, the manual is ahead by a nose. The auto won’t disappoint, but the manual is better.
While it’s a relatively safe bet that many owners won’t ever appreciate the Swift’s decisive handling, there’s a sweet spot with dynamics, too. And Suzuki has hit it. See, with cars, there’s a middle ground between cars that want to kill you, dynamically, and cars that seek instead to bore you to death. The new Swift is in a great place between these polar extremes. It rides on MacPherson struts at the front and a torsion-beam setup at the rear, but these are merely descriptions of the underlying engineering. The bottom line is that you heel-toe to third and lift the throttle into a corner at 5000rpm in a Swift, and the nose tucks in just perfectly. You’re bullseyeing the apex – minus the terror you’d experience in, say, a Lotus – and the steering does a pretty good job with feedback as well. You’re not exactly overwhelmed with urge on the way out, which is a good news/bad news story. You can’t gloss over your cornering mistakes with monster torque in a Swift the way you can in (for example) a Ralliart Lancer – but if you’re quick in a Swift, you’re … er … swift.
You are also the beneficiary of four-corner disc brakes on the top-spec GLX models, although the GL has drums at the rear. Brake pedal feel is pretty good, with either setup, too. Even when you’re working them hard. The rear drums on the base car don’t seem to comprise a singular disadvantage.
Inside, there is iPod integration and a USB input. The upmarket GLX model gets reach adjustment on the steering (tilt-only on the GL) plus a proximity key and stop-start button (conventional ignition key on the GL).
Safety is another area in which the Swift is a big winner. There are seven airbags standard across the range: 2 x front, 2 x side and 2 x curtains, plus a driver’s knee bag. Electronic stability control is likewise standard. The new Swift has already achieved the coveted five-star safety rating from Euro NCAP, and Suzuki Australia is confident the local car will achieve five stars as well; another advantage of the stronger, stiffer body structure.
The new Swift is better – maybe not such a departure visually, but 15 per cent better all around. And that means it scores 11 out of 10 when rating the best light cars on the market.
One thing’s for sure: Come February 2011 the sweet-spot orientation of the new Swift will be unchanged. Except for getting both swifter and sweeter.
Source: www.caradvice.com.au
