Lightweight turbo-ed giggle-machine.
Suzuki has confirmed the impending arrival of the incredibly eye-catching Swift Sport, due to arrive early 2018. The Swift Sport will sit at the top of the local range, and will come in two variations that are designed to appeal to young up-and-comers who want a tad more excitement in their daily driver as opposed to the garden variety compact hatch.
The Swift Sport was presented to the world at the Frankfurt motor show just last month, and despite a good 3-weeks passing since, we still haven’t quite made up our minds as to how to treat the Swift Sports’ aesthetics. While competitors like the Nissan Micra and the Toyota Corolla have gone Eurocentric, the Swift Sport just sort of sits there, with an expression that is both aggressive and confused. While the overall effect is not to all tastes, it will surely strike a chord with buyers looking to stand out in a crowd.
The most significant change to the Swift Sport recipe can be found under the bonnet, where the old atmo engine has been swapped-out for a forced-induction 1.4-litre Boosterjet 4-pot turbo, good 103kW and 230Nm, though the torque is most potent in a very narrow band, between 2500rpm and 3500rpm, before it tapers off before the redline. Thankfully, there’s a close-ratio six-speed manual and a six-speed automatic gearbox on offer to make the most of that grunt, which ought to make overtaking a doddle.
The Swift Sport has also been on a diet as it comes into this second generation, with the new car weighing in at just 970kg, signifying a weight drop of about 80kg over the outgoing car. That gives the Swift Sport a power-to-weight ratio that lets it sit among big boys like the Renault Clio RS, the Ford Focus ST and the Volkswagen Golf GTI and offsetting the power handicap by some way.
The cabin works to ensure you always know you’re in a hot model, with plenty of red accents dotted about the place, as well as sports seats (with ‘Sport’ stitched into them) and a flat-bottomed steering wheel to keep you enticed on a backroad. Convenience is well catered for too, with the headlining feature being a 7.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system that supports Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, along with a 4.2-inch driver supervision display sitting between the sporty stopwatch-inspired dials.
If you think we’re excited to give this thing a go when it arrives next year, you’d be right on the money.
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