Suzuki cars for sale

Overview

Suzuki is the master of the small car. It makes very little that is large, and what it does make is unusually good at its job — the Jimny is the only genuinely capable, genuinely tiny four-wheel drive left on the market, and the Swift has been a benchmark light car for two decades.

History

Michio Suzuki founded Suzuki Loom Works at Hamamatsu in October 1909, building weaving looms for Japan’s silk industry for thirty years. Car development began in 1937, and by 1955 the Suzulight arrived with front-wheel drive and independent suspension — features that would not be common for another three decades. The company became Suzuki Motor Co. in 1954.

Motorcycles came in 1952 with the Power Free motorised bicycle. The Alto of 1979 made Suzuki Japan’s dominant kei car maker, a position it held for thirty consecutive years by 2003. The LJ10 of 1970 was the first mass-produced 4x4 mini-vehicle and the ancestor of the Jimny, and the Cultus of 1983 became the Swift. The Maruti Suzuki joint venture with the Indian government, established in 1981–82, made Suzuki the dominant carmaker in India.

Buying a used Suzuki

Suzukis are mechanically simple and cheap to run, which is the entire point. Swift and Baleno are sensible first cars, and the Vitara sits between a small SUV and something you can genuinely take off the tarmac.

The Jimny is the exception to normal used-car economics: demand has consistently exceeded supply in Australia, so second-hand prices sit close to — and sometimes above — new. Check for off-road damage underneath before paying that premium.