Road Test: Suzuki Swift 1.6 Sport 3dr

When are you going to run out of talent, you tenacious little swine? 'Not before you do, you fat bastard', I could almost hear the little Suzuki yelling back at me.

We were blasting down a bumpy single-lane tarmac track in Sussex, making this heaving, treacherous road our bitch. No matter how hard I tried, the car refused to do anything silly.

In the end, I spotted what looked like a significant Hump approaching. We hit it at middling revs in third gear, fast enough to send the front wheels off the ground. The Swift just landed and carried on. It didn't bottom out, didn't protest, it just shrugged and said 'give me more, fool'.

Suzuki engineers in Germany have honed the multi-award-winning Swift for European drivers and this new Sport is the most impressive result of that strategy to date.

It's a great little hot hatch - meaty steering, chunky, short-throw gearshift, and a stiffened chassis that doesn't want to understeer. The 123bhp 1.6-litre engine revs cleanly and gives the car just enough pace.

Good looking on its 17in wheels and distinctive inside, with its body hugging pseudo-race seats, the Swift sport will give cars like the Ford Fiesta Zetec S and Citroen C2 VTS a very hard time. At £11,500 it's good value too.

In fact, you'd better be quick to test drive one - Suzuki won't be able to import enough of these cars to meet demand.