28 July 2024

Apparently, the new Suzuki Swift is now a hybrid. In your wildest dreams ...

29 July 2024 | James Coleman

Still ‘Taylor-made’ for a certain demographic? The Suzuki Swift can’t seem to ‘shake it off’. Photo: James Coleman.. Photo: James Coleman.

Are you looking for phone connectivity with four wheels, five seats, and enough oily bits underneath to get you and your things to where they need to be? And back again? For many, many years?

Just buy this one.

Okay, that’s 46 words, and I can’t exactly file a car review of that length and expect to leave work with a clear conscience. So I’ll elaborate.

The Suzuki Swift has been around since the 1980s, but the shape we’re most familiar with – the upright windscreen and lights that look like they’ve been stretched and dragged up and over the front and rear – originates from 2004.

A Sport version arrived a year later, with a fervent 1.6-litre engine and exhaust pipes the size of blunderbuss barrels mounted into the rear diffuser.

Either way, we’ve come to see them around university car parks a lot, with ‘bejewelled’ ornaments hanging from the rear-view mirror. They were cheap and cheerful. And bulletproof – ProductReview.com.au gives the Suzuki Swift a 4.3 rating from 201 reviews. The ideal first car.

The Swift has now received a makeover for 2024, with a new look and – a first for Suzuki – a mild-hybrid arrangement under the bonnet. But not ‘everything has changed’.

Photos: James Coleman.

As a man, I’m not a ‘lover’ of ‘the outside’. Despite the fact the lights are now sharper and the creases tauter and the roof blacker, the rear end especially is a bit frumpy.

Mine is the mid-spec Plus model, which comes with wheels that would be cool – if they were on one of those car rides in the shopping centres.

It’s about 50 kg heavier but only slightly bigger than the old model, so the inside still feels surprisingly spacious, to the point it takes a full-on yoga move to reach the opposite door from the driver’s seat.

‘Safe and sound’ inside. Photo: James Coleman.

The seats themselves have ‘style’, if a little ordinary to actually sit on, and the dashboard is splashed with textured white accents as a welcome reprieve from the ‘blank space’. Rear passengers, however, are treated to unbroken mould of black plastic as a door lining.

I found I had to slam the doors with more gusto than most other cars, so there’s clearly not much inside them.

Which also became abundantly clear when I started the engine.

The new mild-hybrid system, which Suzuki has floated as an option for the Jimny mini-4WD as well, uses a 1.2-litre three-cylinder engine but gives it a little electrical boost with a 12-volt battery. And I mean little. It supplies about the same power as two food blenders (2.3 kW).

So unlike the benchmark Toyota hybrid system we might be used to, this means it can never run purely on electric power.

My uncle used to own a caravan called a ‘Danette Swift’, and the same level of sarcasm is present here.

With the exception of the warm Sport model, the old Swift was never zesty, and now with less power and torque and more weight – ‘ready for for it’ – forward movement is glacial. It’s nippy enough around town, but you’ll need life support handy if you’re wanting to make it to 100 km/h.

The CVT transmission also shunts and lurches at low speeds, like your ham-fisted 16-year-old son is inside, changing the gears manually.

Fuel consumption? The screen’s ’16’ figure threw me into a panic, until I realised it was reading in kilometres per litre rather than the more standard measurement of litres per 100 km, but it’s good (four litres per 100 km, in ordinary speak).

‘Call it what you want’, but ignore the hybrid hype. You simply can’t tell it is one apart from the badge on the boot.

Pricing is every so slightly up, starting from $24,490 for the manual Hybrid ($26,990 for the auto version), $28,490 for my Plus auto, and going up to $29,490 for the GLX with its snazzier wheels and wireless phone charger.

Photos: James Coleman.

But there’s a lot of tech on board, everything from adaptive cruise control to lane-assist steering systems that almost make it self-driving. There are even heated seats in all but the base model.

If only it had climate-controlled air-con though – I thought the days of constantly having to adjust fan speed and temperature were over in 2003.

More importantly for the average buyer, however, there’s a new and bigger touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay, sat-nav and Bluetooth. You’ll just need The Tortured Poets Department album close to max to drown out the engine roar.