SUZUKI SWIFT SPORT
After a series of glowing testimonies, our hatch comes under cross-examination
LARGE STEERING WHEEL
Purposeful and devoid of any ‘a tiny wheel gives you more feel’ nonsense. MOTORWAY COMFORT As fun as it is on B-roads, it can be tiresomely noisy and harsh on longer schleps.
MILEAGE 6744
WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT
To find out if the new, turbo Swift Sport still offers good, simple hot hatch fun that can compete with the best in class
We’ve racked up thousands of fun miles during four-and-a-bit months in our banana-hued pocket rocket. The Swift Sport has thus far been very easy to rub along with, but these updates would be dull if we said we liked everything about every car.
So if I’m being particularly niggly, I’m not sold on the three-dial arrangement for controlling the climate system. Well, I refer to it as ‘three-dial’, except the middle one isn’t a dial. It is merely a screen for showing your climate settings that happens to look and feel identical to the rotary dials (for the blower speed and temperature) either side of it. This quirk finally sunk in after I’d fumbled to adjust the temperature via the immovable central ‘dial’ for the umpteenth time. Problem is, when you’re on the move and want to adjust the temperature, you want the operation to be so instinctive that you don’t need to avert your eyes from the road.
Elsewhere, there are areas where I feel Suzuki has gone a bit too far in its mission to apply traditional hot hatch tropes to the Swift. Is it laid down in some arcane law, for example, that every sporting car must have red-hued instruments? And does the circumference of the analogue tachometer really need to have graduated measurements denoting each 50rpm? Can the most eagleeyed of warm hatch enthusiasts distinguish the difference between 2150rpm and 2200rpm while on the move?
On an upbeat note, the low tyre pressure alert that caught the attention of resident owner James Attwood in recent weeks (Our Cars, 3 October) didn’t rear its head during my time in the car, so it looks likely that the system was simply crying wolf.
One beep I wish I’d heard was that of a reverse parking sensor. I recently engaged ‘numpty mode’ and backed the car into a barrier in the Autocar multi-storey car park. Fortunately, the barrier was made of wood, not unyielding concrete or steel, and the Swift Sport escaped without a mark.
In my defence, your honour, it was the absence of parking sensors on the Swift Sport that confused me. It seems a surprising and notable absence, even on a small car, although Suzuki would justify the decision by pointing to the reversing camera that’s included as standard. That would have been useful in this instance if I’d remembered there was one. Besides, the view from said camera isn’t very good, because it is deeply recessed above the rear numberplate and gets obscured by muck easily.
That said, Attwood says the Swift Sport is so small that he’s never missed the sensors. And, of course, none of these quibbles would make or break a Swift Sport sale. The car’s appeal as an involving, cheerful warm hatch means such trifling foibles won’t even warrant a second thought for many. The enjoyment from taking to a flowing B-road, and the Swift Sport’s inbuilt and infectious charm, means that such issues fade from the memory quite quickly.
Indeed, the very fact we’ve had to dig so deep to unearth anything untoward about the Swift Sport is a glowing testament to its strengths as a fun hatch.