Suzuki Jimny
GOODBYE
£18,499 OTR/£19,149 as tested/£252pcm
WHY IT’S HERE
Can it possibly be as charming to live with as it is to look at?
DRIVER
Stephen Dobie
AS THE JIMNY DROVE OFF INTO THE SUNSET IT LEFT NOT ONLY THE TG Garage, but Great Britain as a whole. Emissions regulations have booted the wee Suzuki from our showrooms, its gruff nat-asp 1.5-litre engine just no longer clean enough to limbo under tightening targets.
It’s funny how Jexit’s softened my feelings. See, we’d not fully seen eye to eye. As an everyday road car, covering the sort of motorway miles I do, it was shambolic. Especially in a stern crosswind. Top tip, Jimny owners: whenever the Met Office sees fit to name a storm, stay at home.
Its shrunk-in-the-wash dimensions are more welcome in town, where it slinks through gaps and into parking spaces with riotous ease. But in our new age of electric city cars, it’s hard not to feel red faced about pumping out the quantity of carbons that’ve brought on Suzuki’s sales hit.
Even two years after it was introduced, the Jimny still commands up to 25 grand in the classifieds. Pay that and I imagine you’ll be aghast upon clambering inside; apart from the hi-def media screen, there’s little in the way of modernity. The Jimny’s best bits are all mechanical, and colleagues who’ve taken it seriously off road have all come back gushing with praise.
Suzuki has recently confirmed a ‘very limited’ run of Jimny commercial vehicles, driving headlong through an emissions regs loophole by ditching its rear seats. Given I largely kept them flipped down anyway, to embiggen the boot space, I reckon that’s a smart idea. Its reclassification as ‘van’ should considerably dim the spotlight on its refinement levels, too.
It’s a stay of execution, but the Jimny needs a cleaner drivetrain if it’s to return full-time. I hope it gets one; it may be a long way from perfect, but there’s nowt else like it, and it possesses a heck of a lot more integrity than a Crossland, EcoSport or a dozen other crossovers sold at similar money. Losing it is momentous whether you want one or not.