Vhuthu Owen Mulamu
When thinking about the intangible vibes you get from various car brands, you probably associate the exciting and flamboyant kind with the likes of Mercedes-AMG and Alfa Romeo. On the other hand, companies such as Volvo and Suzuki have a whiff of a boring personality that would even put a cocaine user to sleep. With regards to the latter Japanese-based car brand, die-hard motorists will be the first to tell you that Suzuki has, in the past, produced a car that does fun arguably better than any other offering out there – yes, even more than hyper-expensive, blue-blooded sports cars.
Named the Swift Sport, this lightly garnished version of the bread-and-butter Swift hatchback has been a car that is greater than the sum of its parts ever since it’s inception in 2005. With only just subtle sporty upgrades to a car that was as exciting as eating Weetbix with water, the Suzuki Swift Sport made itself known to be the go-to car for anyone who wanted to have the most amount of sporty fun without disappointing your financial advisor. It became a car that showcased the true spirit of driving and why motorheads love the activity so much, doing all of this only being armed with a compilation of lukewarm parts at best. So now, when we heard they’ve made a new model, we couldn’t help but check it out with eyes glistening and feet shuffling with excitement.
The Exterior
Seen in the bright yellow colour, the excitement factor of the Suzuki Swift Sport hits the ceiling and keeps on going! If, however, you choose to go for a less conspicuous colour, there are plenty of other bits to hint to its sporty theme, starting off with its face. The Suzuki Swift Sport’s facia looks like it knows all your dirty little secrets and is not afraid to use them against you if you don’t play along – okay, maybe that’s not sporty but it definitely is a good way to tell that someone is naughty. The bumper vents and grille have outlines that are sharper than those found on the normal Swift while the Swift Sport gains a neat black plastic air splitter on the bottom edge of the said front bumper. Moving on to the side, and there is a chunky side skirt, also fitted in black plastic. Swing around to the rear and you should be careful as your shins might be seared by one of the two chrome-tipped exhaust pipes on either side. Wrapped around these double shooters is a faux diffuser or bumper looking thing. Whatever it is, it looks awesome! There is a Sport logo underneath the Swift nameplate but I’m sure the effect is the same with or without said logo. In pictures then, all seems well. However when seen in the metal, one would find that the wheel arches are noticeably underfilled and that the amount of rubber beyond the pentagonal pattern rims is leaning on the excessive side. Still, a looker if you ask me!
The Interior
Since we’re already on looks, how does the interior fair out? Well, in short, it continues the sporty ethos of the exterior. Starting with the red-themed gauge cluster with analogue dials on either side and a 4.2” screen in between. It displays basic information such as mileage, average fuel consumption and other rather interesting stuff, like a torque meter – yup, a torque meter in a Suzuki! Then there’s the flat-bottom steering wheel with the bottom part finished in a glossy black material and the rest of it wrapped in red-stitched leather and, of course, it has loads of buttons on it. These buttons control the screen in the gauge cluster and the 7” touchscreen that takes centre stage on the dashboard. It is easy to use, responsive and offers decent functionality such as Bluetooth connectivity.
You also get cloth semi-bucket seats to hold you in place during some aggressive cornering. There’s red stitching all around the interior of the Swift Sport as well as on the seats, on the steering wheel and on the carpets. Look around and you won’t be hard-pressed to find red accents around the cabin too. This interior makes sure you never forget that you’re not driving just any other Swift. In case you were somehow still confused about the intentions of this car, each seat has the word “sport” embroidered on it and the same goes for the carpets. Even the pedals are finished in stainless steel. The Swift Sport’s interior is definitely not premium (it shouldn’t be anyway) but it doesn’t look cheap either. It manages to still feel special and it feels like the best a Suzuki Swift’s interior could ever get. There are no blank buttons/switches and nothing feels out of place. There aren’t any hints of something that isn’t there. All-in-all, the interior of the Suzuki Swift Sport is a pleasant space to find yourself in.
Performance
The Swift Sport is powered by a 1.4-litre turbocharged engine, named, wait for it, Boosterjet! It is smaller than the previous generation Swift Sport’s 1.6-litre naturally aspirated engine however, there is some good news. The Boosterjet puts out 103 kW and 230 N.m of torque which is a small upward kick in power and much more torque than the old 1.6-litre engine. But wait, there is more good news! Peak torque comes in much lower in the rev range at just 2500 rpm, meaning you don’t have to get it screaming for it to show some up, up and away! enthusiasm. Power is transmitted through a choice of either a 6-speed manual or a 6-speed automatic transmission. If you’re eyeing the manual then you should know that gear changes can be a bit notchy but fast shifts are still possible, even though it does leave some confidence to be desired during sporty shifting. But then again, we’re not in The Fast And The Furious, so you should be okay.
In all honesty, 103 KW isn’t a particularly impressive power figure – even a Mazda CX-3 (a humdrum vehicle in comparison) has more power, 10 kW more to be exact. But the Swift Sport only weighs 970 kg, which is lighter than some feathers (lol, I kid) and the performance figures support that. Zero to 100 km/h is dealt with in just 8 seconds with a top speed of 205 km/h and because it is so light, taking corners in this thing is a delight – hey, that rhymes! Each time you take a corner the level of grip is a happy surprise however, like most front-wheel-drive hot hatchbacks, if you approach a corner a bit too fast, you will experience some understeer. Albeit a bit alarming at first (especially on a narrow road), in the Swift Sport, the understeer is progressive and can easily be corrected by just giving the throttle a breather. Dynamically, this car’s handling is impressive and rightfully so, because Suzuki went all out to ensure that it is. They installed custom shock absorbers designed by Monroe and increased spring and damper rates at the front to further curb understeer. Suzuki even went as far as to fit relatively beefy anti-roll bars to help it corner flat and they also increased the Swift Sport’s stopping power by fitting bigger ventilated brake disks which are more effective at dissipating heat from the brakes.
Features
Well, we all know Suzuki has built a reputation of being as well-equipped as a cardboard box -okay perhaps that is a bit too harsh. But the point is that Suzuki models tend to offer only what you need in terms of features, bells and whistles such as electric windows and a CD player, and before you give a smug chuckle, CDs are still used, people!.
In terms of safety, since you will likely be going much faster in the Swift Sport, Suzuki has given it a safety upgrade. Along with ABS, EBD, and Stability/Traction control, you also get 6 airbags including a front passenger, driver, front side and curtain airbags. Safe to say, you’ll be at ease in the Suzuki Swift Sport – see what I did there?
Anyway back to the cardboard box analogy, or rather, disproving it. The Swift Sport is surprisingly well-equipped – there’s keyless entry and a keyless Start/Stop button which means you can unlock the car, drive it and lock it without the keys ever leaving the safety of your pocket. The LED headlights also double as daytime running lights and there’s a reverse camera to help you squeeze into those tight parking spots. The camera isn’t really high quality though and looks like a tribute to those old VGA cameras – but it shows you all that you need to see. You also get electric folding and adjusting mirrors and it really cannot be stressed enough how dignifying these two features are. Good riddance to the days of reaching to the other side of the car just to adjust the left mirror slightly just to realise you’ve gone too far in one direction – even though it was good for your six-pack abs goals, it got annoying really quickly. To top it all off, there’s also climate control and automatic lights, and the best part is that all these features come as standard.
Summary
The Suzuki Swift Sport is not the hottest hatch, or the most powerful or the loudest in the market. But it offers a different kind of fun. A fun that most highly-desired hot hatches such as your Honda Civic Type R and Volkswagen Golf GTI cannot really offer – the fun of laying your foot on the accelerator pedal like a brick and still not break any public road speed limits. It offers really good acceleration and still manages to be as efficient as a standard, zestless Toyota Yaris.
At just R316 000 for the manual and R336 000 for the automatic, the Swift Sport really offers a lot of fun for the money…with your clothes on. Besides the huge gap in retail price between it and the likes of Volkswagen’s Polo GTI and the over-priced Renault Clio RS, its lightness means it can trade punches with the big boys on a circuit. With the relative practicality of a small hatchback, foldable rear seats and reasonable ride height, the Swift Sport might as well be the perfect sports car on public roads for the humble enthusiast. If you look beyond the quiet exhaust, you can have a lot of fun in the Swift Sport and not even need a racing circuit to do so.
The Suzuki Swift Sport in a sentence: It is so fun that it will get your CEO kicked out of a race track for having too much fun. (Definitely not based on a true story!)
