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New Suzuki Swift Sport to be lighter and torquier

The Suzuki Swift Sport has been one of the most interesting hot hatches of the last decade, well at least outside the United States. Its first iteration was released in 2005, leaving behind its crummy Geo Metro guise in favor of something more in line dynamically with the segment best. Though it may have been an underdog from day one, the Swift Sport proved itself to be both fun and reliable The new car promises to up the ante with a stiffer structure and a footprint increased courtesy a 20 mm-longer wheelbase and a stance that's 40 mm wider and 15 mm lower. Power comes from a turbocharged 1.4-liter four-cylinder Suzuki cheekily calls the Boosterjet, ditching the old 1.6-liter naturally aspirated inline-4. The downsized, intercooled 138-horsepower turbo engine gives the Swift Sport only four more horsepower than the old unit, but there is a lot more torque available and at lower revs. Another major improvement is a weight loss of nearly 180 pounds -- definitely a big deal in a small car like this -- as the new model tips the scales at less than 2,140 lbs. Suzuki says the feel of the six-speed manual shifter has been improved, too. "It's lighter, sharper, quicker. It's more aggressive and emotive, but we've also refined the elements that make it practical to use every day," said Suzuki chief engineer Masao Kobori. "The clutch feel, the manual transmission shift throw, the seats and steering wheel -- everything that puts the driver at the heart of the experience." Sounds neat, though with Suzuki gone from the U.S. market, it'll remain forbidden fruit for American customers. On the other hand, you can apparently rent these in Germany. Nurburgring rental anyone? Related Video:

Junkyard Gem: 1985 Chevrolet Sprint

For in the 1985 model year, General Motors began selling Chevrolet-badged Suzuki Cultus hatchbacks in California. Sales of the cheap three-cylinder econobox in the rest of North America followed soon after (with the Canadian version known as the Pontiac Firefly), and did pretty well considering the crash in gasoline prices during the middle 1980s. Starting in 1988, the facelifted Sprint became the Geo (and, later on, Chevrolet) Metro. Here's one of the very first Cultuses sold on our shores, found in a San Francisco Bay Area car graveyard. Amazingly, the primitive rear-wheel-drive Chevrolet Chevette remained available all the way through 1987, competing with the thriftier front-wheel-drive Sprint in the same showrooms. For 1988, Pontiac started selling a rebadged Daewoo LeMans, so the Sprint/Metro never lacked for intra-corporate competition. Inside, you'll find the same stuff most mid-1980s Japanese econoboxes got: tough cloth upholstery and long-wearing hard plastics. Suzuki quality in 1985 wasn't quite up to Honda or Toyota levels, but you weren't paying Honda or Toyota prices for the Sprint. MSRP on this car started at $4,949, or about $12,000 in 2020 dollars. The cheapest possible 1985 Chevette cost $5,340, while a new no-frills Ford Escort would set you back $5,620. Subaru, however, could have put you in a punitively unappointed base-model Leone hatchback for just 40 bucks more than the Sprint that year. I think I'd have sprung the extra for a $5,348 Toyota Tercel, a $5,195 Mazda GLC, or— best cheap-commuter deal of all that year— the $5,399 Honda Civic 1300 hatchback. I was 19 years old and driving a Competition Orange 1968 Mercury Cyclone that year, and I recall feeling pity for Chevy Sprint drivers, new-car smell or not. Still, these weren't bad cars for the price, though a Sprint with an automatic transmission was a real character-builder. Got three cylinders and uses 'em all! 48 horsepower from this hemi-headed SOHC 1-liter. The Turbo Sprint — yes, such a car existed — had a howling 70 horsepower. The hood-latch release is a rectangular button that resembles a badge. 1985 Chevy Sprint Commercial The highest-mileage, lowest-priced car you can buy. 1985 holden barina commercial The Australian-market version was the Holden Barina, and the TV ads featured the Road Runner. 1983 SUZUKI CULTUS Ad In its homeland, this car got screaming guitars and a drive through New York City for its TV commercials.

Future Classic: 1996-1998 Suzuki X-90

SUVs are absolute cash cows, and because of that, automakers don’t often take risks in their design and execution. Oh, sure, the occasional Evoque Coupe or Murano CrossCabriolet slips through the cracks, but by and large most SUVs have four doors, two or three rows of seats and a hatchback for your cargo. But in the 1990s, carmakers were still experimenting with SUVs, so things occasionally got weird, and nothing embodied weirdness quite like the Suzuki X-90. Half SUV, half coupe, half roadster (three halves – see, super weird), the X-90 was all about fun in the sun. It was wild and had lots of personality. SuzukiÂ’s liÂ’l guy was unlike anything else on the road. Why is the Suzuki X-90 a future classic? The X-90 was SuzukiÂ’s followup to the ill-fated Samurai – you know, the SUV that was “easier to flip than a toilet seat,” according to reports from the time. The X-90 was much safer, with standard features like driver and passenger airbags, as well as antilock brakes, but it still fully embodied the SamuraiÂ’s have-fun-anywhere ethos. “Cute utes” were a growing subset of small SUVs in the ‘90s, and wow did the X-90 fully lean into this demeanor. It was tiny – only slightly longer and taller than a modern Fiat 500 – with two doors, two seats, a removable T-top roof and a sedan-like trunk with a spoiler for added flourish. Its 6.3 inches of ground clearance gave it a tiny-tough trucky stance, and you could get it in vibrant colors like purple and teal. It even had seat fabric that looked like ‘90s jazz cups. So cool. What is the ideal example of the Suzuki X-90? Since it was a low-volume product that was only sold for a couple of years (adding to its scarcity today), there werenÂ’t many differences between the X-90s that came to the U.S. All of ‘em were powered by a 1.6-liter inline-four engine with a blistering 95 horsepower and 98 pound-feet of torque. Buyers could choose between rear- and four-wheel drive, as well as a four-speed automatic or five-speed manual transmission. Going for the stick-shift gave you a slight edge on fuel economy, with the EPA rating both RWD and 4WD X-90s at 24 mpg combined, compared to 22 mpg with the automatic. Considering its core mission was all about having a whale of a time, the smartest way to spec an X-90 is with the five-speed manual and four-wheel drive.