Swift Sport still a special delivery
Posted by Richard Bosselman for Autos - Mon, 20 Feb 2012 06:44
HAS motorsport helped significantly boost sales of the Swift Sport? Suzuki agrees the circuit workout has certainly delivered plenty of publicity for the wee five-door hottie.
However, they also cheerfully concede that old adage ‘win on Sunday, sell on Monday’ takes a different spin with this flag-waver. Actually, make that spin, roll, biff, bash and bingle.
The Swift Sport Cup racing series, a key component of the national championship series is a breeding ground of emerging young talent. Which means it is also as mental as anything.
In the five years since its formulation, this category has proven close in every sense. No other tintop tussle delivers so much mirror-bashing, paint-scraping wheel-to-wheel action. Inevitably someone comes a cropper, usually spectacularly.
You might not have noticed – but the brand certainly has – a crashing positive from the 2012 series, currently being fought out: It makes for great television action. “Whenever there’s a race, we make the sports news,” a brand spokesman told me. “Usually it’s someone going upside down or into a wall. I dunno if it helps sales, but we certainly get seen,” he smiled.
We were chatting at the media launch of the new-generation Swift Sport, which is bigger but lighter, higher specced but more sizzling. So more grown up, yet still just a bit bonkers. Quite a bit.
Suzuki wanted to exercise the new model on the track, and though it would have been practical had they chosen Manfeild for this event – it’s the closest circuit to their Wanganui headquarters – it would have been ironic, because this was where one of this great smashes of the Cup championship had been played out just a week ago.
The head-butting of a concrete barrier along the front straight looked nasty but fortunately (like all the other smashes) left the driver unhurt. There might not be many more as this is likely to be the last year for the current car, and the brand has yet to consider whether to pitch in the new model. Sentiment surely demands they should.
The abiding delight is that an upscale in zest, size, sophistication and safety has not come at any particular hit on the pocket – just a $510 price lift to a still highly satisfying $27,500 – or dmininished the fun factor. Though stronger and better-sorted for stiffness (and impacts) it actually weighs less than before, so still retains that alluring delicacy, nimbleness and nippiness.
There are still quibbles – it cries out for a rortier exhaust note and a speedo lacking a clear 100kmh delineation is just asking for trouble. Otherwise this junior GT looks set to continue where the old favourite left off. So race on, I say!
For our own circuit work we gathered at Boomrock, a corporate play area at Makara, near Wellington, where they have a wee little track. It’s too narrow and short for racing – even karts would find it a squeeze – and was a bit of a disappointment, actually, for the demonstrating the car’s antiskid brakes and its stability control, a new Sport feature.
Sections had been wetted down to reduce traction, but the sprinklers hadn’t been running long enough, so getting the car to break loose wasn’t easy. After a morning here, I had been beyond third gear and was none the wiser about what this car was really about.
Fortunately, the road drive told the story; or at least two sections – the short stretch out of Makara to the motorway toward Wellington then the Rimutuka hill run, a great little stretch despite the silly 70kmh speed restriction, which we took in the northward direction.
It was a brilliant workout of a chassis that, back at Boomrock, would cheekily lift an inside rear wheel at extremis, and also the well-sorted steering and brakes. And also, of course, the car’s more powerful fuel-injected 1.6-litre VVT four-cylinder engine, producing 100kW of power and 160Nm of torque – up 30kW and 30Nm over the regular Swift and 8kW/12Nm over the previous Swift Sport.
While those power outputs may not scream “performance” per se, bear in mind the new model clocks 1060 kilograms, so is 30kgs less than before. Accordingly, power to weight is still quite good, and even if the claimed 0-100kmh time of 8.7 seconds shows that Ferraris have nothing to fear, it still has that terrific giant-beater feel.
The gearbox features a clever new synchromesh in the first two gears for easier, faster changes, though thereon the shift action is still light and accurate. Once the revs climb above 4,500rpm the engine really starts to come on song. Give it heaps and it’s a car that simply excels on these point-to-point roads.
The car also looks the part. As before, Suzuki NZ has eschewed the three-door, but it looks well-balanced in five-door form. The design has certainly taken an evolutionary step forward and it’s now much easier to tell the Sport apart from the standard car. Changes include a more aggressive front bumper with a wide-mouthed grille and sharply styled fog-light surrounds, blacked out headlight surrounds, 17-inch alloys (up from 16s before), lower door sill mouldings and a chunky rear spoiler and neat diffuser-style bottom. It’s also the only Swift with HID lights.
The new model has loaded up. New features include push button start, tinted rear windows, a six-speaker stereo with USB input and Bluetooth audio streaming and seven airbags (dual front, front side, full-length curtain and driver’s knee). This time around higher-quality materials pervade the cabin and, of course, there are the usual sporty tweaks of a fat-rimmed steering wheel and alloy-coated pedals. The chairs are more heavily bolstered than standard items and provide good adjustment; even for a big boy like me, it just felt perfect. And perfectly chuckable.
None of this will dampen Kiwi enthusiasm for the model, which in old form accounted for a full 10 percent of Swift sales but might be expected to establish even higher penetration due to one other change: Introduction of automatic.
It’s disturbing news, I feel, that Suzuki NZ reckons at least 60 percent of its clientele might ultimately prefer the seven-speed constantly variable transmission here from mid-year. To me, such a model really separates the true sports fans from the badge fanciers.
The CVT, which we didn’t get to try, is being spruiked as a particularly good ‘un, with fancy performance tuning, so I’ll reserve final judgement until having spent time with it.
Yet gut feeling is not good; I just can’t see it attuning to this funbox’s brilliance as artfully as the manual. And while I appreciate CVTs make life easy around for town – the whole point for taking it, the brand says - but surely there’s always the standard 1.4 orthodox auto for this. Economy-wise, the CVT 1.6 is but a fraction thriftier than the orthodox auto 1.6, with claimed 6.1 litres per 100km versus 6.2 (the manuals are well apart; 5.5 for the 1.4 five-speed versus 6.5 for the Sport).
And, anyway, you’ll never see an automatic in the Sport Cup.
However, they also cheerfully concede that old adage ‘win on Sunday, sell on Monday’ takes a different spin with this flag-waver. Actually, make that spin, roll, biff, bash and bingle.
The Swift Sport Cup racing series, a key component of the national championship series is a breeding ground of emerging young talent. Which means it is also as mental as anything.
In the five years since its formulation, this category has proven close in every sense. No other tintop tussle delivers so much mirror-bashing, paint-scraping wheel-to-wheel action. Inevitably someone comes a cropper, usually spectacularly.
You might not have noticed – but the brand certainly has – a crashing positive from the 2012 series, currently being fought out: It makes for great television action. “Whenever there’s a race, we make the sports news,” a brand spokesman told me. “Usually it’s someone going upside down or into a wall. I dunno if it helps sales, but we certainly get seen,” he smiled.
We were chatting at the media launch of the new-generation Swift Sport, which is bigger but lighter, higher specced but more sizzling. So more grown up, yet still just a bit bonkers. Quite a bit.
Suzuki wanted to exercise the new model on the track, and though it would have been practical had they chosen Manfeild for this event – it’s the closest circuit to their Wanganui headquarters – it would have been ironic, because this was where one of this great smashes of the Cup championship had been played out just a week ago.
The head-butting of a concrete barrier along the front straight looked nasty but fortunately (like all the other smashes) left the driver unhurt. There might not be many more as this is likely to be the last year for the current car, and the brand has yet to consider whether to pitch in the new model. Sentiment surely demands they should.
The abiding delight is that an upscale in zest, size, sophistication and safety has not come at any particular hit on the pocket – just a $510 price lift to a still highly satisfying $27,500 – or dmininished the fun factor. Though stronger and better-sorted for stiffness (and impacts) it actually weighs less than before, so still retains that alluring delicacy, nimbleness and nippiness.
There are still quibbles – it cries out for a rortier exhaust note and a speedo lacking a clear 100kmh delineation is just asking for trouble. Otherwise this junior GT looks set to continue where the old favourite left off. So race on, I say!
For our own circuit work we gathered at Boomrock, a corporate play area at Makara, near Wellington, where they have a wee little track. It’s too narrow and short for racing – even karts would find it a squeeze – and was a bit of a disappointment, actually, for the demonstrating the car’s antiskid brakes and its stability control, a new Sport feature.
Sections had been wetted down to reduce traction, but the sprinklers hadn’t been running long enough, so getting the car to break loose wasn’t easy. After a morning here, I had been beyond third gear and was none the wiser about what this car was really about.
Fortunately, the road drive told the story; or at least two sections – the short stretch out of Makara to the motorway toward Wellington then the Rimutuka hill run, a great little stretch despite the silly 70kmh speed restriction, which we took in the northward direction.
It was a brilliant workout of a chassis that, back at Boomrock, would cheekily lift an inside rear wheel at extremis, and also the well-sorted steering and brakes. And also, of course, the car’s more powerful fuel-injected 1.6-litre VVT four-cylinder engine, producing 100kW of power and 160Nm of torque – up 30kW and 30Nm over the regular Swift and 8kW/12Nm over the previous Swift Sport.
While those power outputs may not scream “performance” per se, bear in mind the new model clocks 1060 kilograms, so is 30kgs less than before. Accordingly, power to weight is still quite good, and even if the claimed 0-100kmh time of 8.7 seconds shows that Ferraris have nothing to fear, it still has that terrific giant-beater feel.
The gearbox features a clever new synchromesh in the first two gears for easier, faster changes, though thereon the shift action is still light and accurate. Once the revs climb above 4,500rpm the engine really starts to come on song. Give it heaps and it’s a car that simply excels on these point-to-point roads.
The car also looks the part. As before, Suzuki NZ has eschewed the three-door, but it looks well-balanced in five-door form. The design has certainly taken an evolutionary step forward and it’s now much easier to tell the Sport apart from the standard car. Changes include a more aggressive front bumper with a wide-mouthed grille and sharply styled fog-light surrounds, blacked out headlight surrounds, 17-inch alloys (up from 16s before), lower door sill mouldings and a chunky rear spoiler and neat diffuser-style bottom. It’s also the only Swift with HID lights.
The new model has loaded up. New features include push button start, tinted rear windows, a six-speaker stereo with USB input and Bluetooth audio streaming and seven airbags (dual front, front side, full-length curtain and driver’s knee). This time around higher-quality materials pervade the cabin and, of course, there are the usual sporty tweaks of a fat-rimmed steering wheel and alloy-coated pedals. The chairs are more heavily bolstered than standard items and provide good adjustment; even for a big boy like me, it just felt perfect. And perfectly chuckable.
None of this will dampen Kiwi enthusiasm for the model, which in old form accounted for a full 10 percent of Swift sales but might be expected to establish even higher penetration due to one other change: Introduction of automatic.
It’s disturbing news, I feel, that Suzuki NZ reckons at least 60 percent of its clientele might ultimately prefer the seven-speed constantly variable transmission here from mid-year. To me, such a model really separates the true sports fans from the badge fanciers.
The CVT, which we didn’t get to try, is being spruiked as a particularly good ‘un, with fancy performance tuning, so I’ll reserve final judgement until having spent time with it.
Yet gut feeling is not good; I just can’t see it attuning to this funbox’s brilliance as artfully as the manual. And while I appreciate CVTs make life easy around for town – the whole point for taking it, the brand says - but surely there’s always the standard 1.4 orthodox auto for this. Economy-wise, the CVT 1.6 is but a fraction thriftier than the orthodox auto 1.6, with claimed 6.1 litres per 100km versus 6.2 (the manuals are well apart; 5.5 for the 1.4 five-speed versus 6.5 for the Sport).
And, anyway, you’ll never see an automatic in the Sport Cup.
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