DRIVING TOWARDS 2035
Steve Hole wanted to buy a Suzuki Jimny but couldn’t, but he decided to do a feature on it anyway.
I recently spent a week with a Suzuki Jimny LCV. What’s that I hear you cry? Can you still buy one of them? Well, no and yes. Sort of. Allow me to explain. You see, Suzuki withdrew the car in 2019 because it didn’t meet emissions regulations. That was a shame as its funky looks were winning it many friends.
Suzuki GB then had a brainwave. Why not take the back seats out and put in a load partition and call it a light commercial vehicle (LCV)? Vans don’t have the same emissions requirement as cars.
With the rear seats in place there wasn’t much boot space anyway, so as long as people didn’t mind a two-seater, all was good.
Trouble is that Suzuki underestimated demand. The Jimny is made in Suzuki’s Kosai factory and its popularity domestically and elsewhere (where they can still buy the four-seater) takes up most of the capacity. As a result, the UK currently gets just 450 Jimny LCVs a year.
I spoke to a Suzuki dealer, who sounded downcast (and guarded!) when I enquired about Jimny. He said that his waiting list was a ‘mile long’ and he didn’t know when he was getting this year’s allocation, let alone what colour they’d be!
Suzuki GB couldn’t help much either (although their press office is staffed by really nice people), other than to confirm what the dealer had told me. Although they didn’t say as much, I suspect that 4500 rather than 450 might be closer to satisfying their demand.
When it comes to choosing colour or trim or even options, forget it. There’s only one trim level (SV4) and there aren’t any options. When it comes to colour choice, you could specify what you wanted but there’s no guarantee you’ll get it. I’m quite tak
