DT Garage: Suzuki Swift Sport – Saying goodbye to me... in car form
How did I feel after six months spent with the Suzuki Swift Sport?
Looking outside right now, well, I was very lucky with the weather when I snapped these pictures...
Six months with the Suzuki Swift Sport absolutely flew by, and now, it's time to say goodbye. To recap some stats: I've been driving around in a Suzuki Swift Sport (mild) Hybrid, in Speedy Blue Metallic with a black roof, red interior (standard with Speedy Blue Metallic, for… reasons?).
It’s got a 1.4-litre 4-cylinder Boosterjet hybrid engine, 129hp, 235Nm torque, 0-62mph in 9.1 seconds, top speed of 130mph, front-wheel drive, and a six-speed manual gearbox. Also, it weighs just 1,025kg!
So how am I feeling after all that time spent behind the wheel of this little hot hatch?
I'm still convinced it's me in car form. After the first month, it immediately felt like the Suzuki Swift Sport suited me. Even after six months it still does, but I'm not necessarily sure why.
That feeling very much continued as I realised just how dramatic the Suzuki Swift Sport is. It's packed with a lot of safety kit for such a small car: automatic high beams, lane keep assist, blind spot monitor, reversing camera, city braking, rear cross traffic alert and traffic sign recognition. But blimey it's a bit paranoid you're going to crash on every corner.
On to the driving. We know the Suzuki Swift Sport is a hot hatch, but is it a HOT HATCH? The short answer is yes, but not quite as much of a HOT HATCH as a Fiesta ST.
One thing I haven't loved about the Suzuki Swift Sport is the interior. For starters, I've really missed having heated seats, but on top of that (and probably more importantly for most people), the infotainment system isn't the greatest. I did make the argument that it doesn't really matter when you've got Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, but on the times I did have to rely on it (getting lost on the way back from James May's pub for instance), it wasn't particularly helpful.
And finally, as the world's been continuing to open up and I've been doing considerably longer journeys, how has the Suzuki Swift Sport coped? Again, not to keep banging on about it or anything, but heated seats always make a three hour journey more pleasant... but apart from that, I was never desperate to get out after a big trek.
The only real issue is how loud it is on the motorway. At around the 70mph mark, it’s doing just shy of 3000 rpm… of course you can turn your music up to drown it out, and soundproofing has been improved since the last model, but it’s still not perfect.
I put out a couple of pictures on Twitter of the car before it went away, and I was a little surprised by how many people replied saying how much they liked it. Another motoring journalist had one for a week, and loved it so much they bought one. It's definitely a car that gets under your skin, and one you end up just really liking, despite its flaws and imperfections.
Yes, I do still think it's a bit pricey, and most people would probably be swayed to buy a Ford Fiesta ST instead of the Suzuki Swift Sport, but perhaps if they got behind the wheel and gave one a go, the little Swift might get under their skin too...
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Comments (9)
Great little car. Potentially does everything you need it to do and more
Super little car I own a speedy blue one 68 plate before they fitted a hybrid system
You don’t need anymore than 130 mph and now achieving 42mpg with mixed town and mway mileage
Good work from Suzuki only one warning a regas of aircon extremely expensive
I've driven the previous generation and I loved it - it's a fun little thing to toss around. Felt fantastic on the curvy mountain road above my house, although I wasn't going particularly fast. And that's the thing about it - you can have fun without going unsafely fast 😊
It is an amazing car. Very underrated
What is it with Suzuki and high cruising RPMs? The Jimny sits at about 4K at a motorway cruise. And when I tested a Vitara hybrid that wasn’t much lower than 3K!