2007 Suzuki Sx4 Sportback Technology 4-door 2.0l 4cy on 2040-cars

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Suzuki design chief discusses Tokyo e-Survivor SUV concept

Underdog Suzuki is one of the more mysterious Japanese brands. Rarely talked about, or indeed self-promoted, it quietly sold nearly 3 million vehicles worldwide in 2016 (alongside sister brand Maruti), and Suzuki has made some intriguingly original cars in recent years. Take the cute-but-tough Ignis city car SUV or the boxy-but-compact Hustler minivan, plus quite a few more. Autoblog took the chance to catch up with the automaker's relatively new head of design, Akira Kamio, at the recent 2017 Tokyo Motor Show to discuss Suzuki latest e-Survivor SUV Concept, plus his personal inspirations. The 54-year-old Kamio – whose design back catalog includes the concept and production Splash city car and second-generation Vitara small SUV, among others – says the beach-buggy-on-steroids show car "imagines a 2030 autonomous car with electric motors within each wheel on a ladder frame." That's a long way out in conceptual terms, as some of the vehicle's futuristic details suggest – rim sections that change color from green to blue according to mode aren't strictly necessary – but there is solid functional thinking to some of its more outlandish elements. Case in point, the see-through doors – long a staple of concept-car design from Italian masters such as Giugiaro and others – have been rendered here in a forward-thinking way. "When in autonomous mode the door glass goes opaque for privacy," Kamio said. "But when in off-road mode, the door glass automatically clears again so the driver can see the obstacles around it to help maneuver over rough terrain. This feature works on the model; it's a serious concept." As to the most relevant element of the e-Survivor's design for nearer-term vehicles, Kamio points to the five vertical slots with the Suzuki "S" logo in front of the center slot. A familiar design cue of the classic Jimny SUV, here this graphic is illuminated and set behind a black-tinted perspex-like cover. Kamio would not be drawn on when the next version of that long-running vehicle would arrive. But given that the third-generation version of the Jimny has been in production since 1998, the mark 4 is long overdue – even by the standards of Jimny's long manufacturing cycles – and is widely expected to arrive in 2018, taking proportional and design detail cues from the e-Survivor.

Next Suzuki SX4 spotted again

Thanks to a sketch of the Suzuki S-Cross concept, we can already see the styling direction that the next-generation SX4 will take, and Suzuki is still hard at work on the production version of the car as evidenced by this latest batch of spy shots. These photos look almost identical to those captured back in July, but we see a little more detail at the rear of the car and get a better idea of the next SX4's proportions.
With the baggy camouflage lifted up at the rear of this prototype, we can see that the SX4 replacement has a very Mazda-chic look to it with downward-angled taillights that stretch into the liftgate. Aside from this, the big news is that we're finally getting a sense of the new SX4's size. Suzuki's press release attached to the Paris-bound S-Cross sketch said that the SX4 replacement would be growing to the compact segment rather than being a subcompact like the current car. Recent reports indicate that the next version of this car will be sized closer to the Grand Vitara, and in these pictures, you can definitely see how much the car has grown.
Still unknown is when we can expect to see the production version of the new SX4, or what will be inside it (available turbo power?), but hopefully Suzuki will not delay things like it did with the Kizashi and its numerous concepts.

Suzuki Vitara shows its face ahead of Paris debut

The death of Suzuki's American automotive operations can be chalked up to many, many things. One thing it cannot be blamed on, however, is the arguable goodness of its products. The company's criminally underrated offerings included the Kizashi sedan, the SX4 compact and your author's personal favorite, the Grand Vitara.
The GV rode on a radically different version of General Motors' Theta platform, which underpins the American manufacturer's current crop of crossovers, like the Chevrolet Equinox. What made the Grand Vitara special, though, was that it wasn't just another run-of-the-mill CUV. Buying the cheapest model meant living with rear-wheel drive rather than the Theta's typical front drive. Spend a bit of money, though, and you'd end up with an honest-to-goodness off-roader, sporting selectable four-wheel drive complete with low-range gearbox. It also comfortably sat five, was reasonably efficient and was quite handsome. We aren't totally sure how it turned into this.
This, of course, being the new Vitara (it replaces the Escudo, the vehicle Americans know as the Grand Vitara), and it will make its global debut at October's Paris Motor Show, which has ditched its four-wheel-drive system for a part-time all-wheel-drive system called Allgrip.