The new Suzuki Ignis, and why I've fallen in love with it

For those of you who have paid a little bit of attention to the car market over the years, you might remeber that Suzuki had a small, rather boring SUV-ish car called Ignis in their fleet a few years ago. It wasn’t really a car for petrolheads, but now they’ve come up with a new one, and it looks bloody brilliant!

It’s a direct competitor to the Fiat Panda 4x4 and the Ford EcoSport, as it measures 3,70 x 1,69 x 1,60 meters. Suzuki are usually pretty good at making small, simple cars and this one seems to be no exception. First of all, it’s the looks. Suzuki claims it has been inspired by the old Whizzkid from the 70s and you can certainly see that at the back, with it’s sloping rear window and those vent motifs behind the doors. I’m not quite sure about the back, but in my opinion the front and side looks great!

On the performance side, it is avaliable as 2wd and 4wd, and a 1.2 litre petrol engine producing 90 hp. You can actually spec it as a hybrid, with a small batery saving up energy coming from braking, which again will help you at hard acceleration. You can only get it with a 5 speed manual gearbox. What is maybe most astonoshing about this car though, is the weight. This whole car only weighs between 810 and 865 kg depending on the spec. That is insanly light for car of today’s standards! Since this car is avaliable with 4wd and also has a relatively good ground clearance, it should be able to do some light offroading, which is cool for all you outdoorsy people out there.

As far as I’ve been able to read in the first road tests, it has gotten fairly positive reviews. For a car as light and cheap as this, you can’t really expect a luxurious interior with BMW standard on the materials, but everything you need and a bit more is there. You can get stuff like DAB-radio, cruise control, sat-nav, LED lights, some fancy offroad modes and auto-braking. The handling isn’t anything shout about, but it moves around the corners in alright fashion, much like you would expect from a tall riding, little hatchback.

The reason I’ve fallen in love with this car is not only because of the cute and wonderfull looks, but also the fact that it’s just a cheap and cheerful little car. It doesn’t try to be anything it isnt’t and kinda makes me think about the Citroen C4 Cactus (which I also love). I love small and different cars, and this reminds me of one of my favourite cars ever - the original Mini. This car makes me smile and I desperately want one, sadly I could never ever afford a new car right now.

If you feel like it, please go ahead and tell me what you think of the new Suzuki Ignis :)