Suzuki Vitara review

Jimny aside, Suzuki has a habit of making its cars sweet to drive, often defying the standards of the class they operate in, not to mention their price point. Dedication to lightweight certainly helps – the Vitara only weighs a smidge more than 1,200kg – and there’s a likeable cleanliness and simplicity to the way it goes about its business.

There’s certainly a lack of sophistication compared to some rivals (particularly the Ford Puma); its ride is more than a bit rough and there’s no adaptive suspension button to smooth off the edges. The rear suspension is also a torsion beam setup. But then it’s far more fun to drive than you’d dare expect, a feeling accentuated by the willing 1.4-litre petrol engine and manual gearbox combo. True, it might not be the most precise gearbox ever, but it suits the Vitara down to a T.

The new mild hybrid system is well integrated too. Essentially it smoothes up the start/stop procedure in town, provides a torque boost before the turbo kicks in at 2,000rpm and lightly improves emissions. Suzuki claims 49.7mpg on the WLTP cycle and 128g/km of CO2 emissions for the front-wheel drive Vitara.

The three-pot engine and automatic gearbox may have been dropped in the most recent update, but buyers can still spec Suzuki’s Allgrip four-wheel drive with the top spec ‘SZ5’ trim. It’s unlikely you’ll ever really require it in a road-biased crossover, but the snow setting was certainly useful during our recent early-February experience. Just a note – speccing 4WD will increase your 0-62mph time from 9.5 to 10.2 seconds, not that you’d notice, although it also reduces fuel efficiency to 45.4mpg and ups emissions to 140g/km.

That mpg figure certainly isn’t out of reach, though. We managed an average of nearly 43mpg from an all-wheel drive Vitara with a mix of city, country and motorway miles.