This story first appeared in the May issue of AutoTalk – CLICK HERE to download the magazine FREE
The very first impressions of Suzuki’s reborn Jimny off-road were full of childish smiles followed by a wagging tongue, not dissimilar to that of a dog’s out the car window.
It’s frisky, capable, light, grunty and virtually unstoppable in first and second-gear squirts up and down the well-trodden slopes of the Melbourne 4×4 proving ground.
Its hill descent control will work its hardest against gravity going down the most unnerving descents, and fight like hell scrambling up the trickiest, most washed-out inclines.
In the wilderness, when it’s just you, the other half and the dog atop a pile of camping gear, the Jimny absolutely fits the brief, especially when adding ARB bullbars, a Warn winch, UHF radio, Rhino roof racks and a Narva light bar to blind moths on the next ridgeline.
But sampling both automatic and manual flavours of Jimny in the concrete jungle, among trams and traffic, threading through thorny intersections and tracking towards Toorak, the onus of compromise starts leaning back onto the driver.
To be brutally honest, initially, the Jimny feels flimsy and floppy in the modern metropolitan world of speed humps, multi-vehicle freeway fracas and school drop-offs.
The four-speed automatic – yes, you read that correctly – with overdrive – again, correct, and no you’re not in the 1990s – has trouble deciding whether to change up or stay in gear and fire all 75kW of hilarious rage and a weirdly sufficient 130Nm of torque.
When you need to get going, the only option is to floor it, and wait for the cogs to change.
The 1.5-litre petrol-four is a brilliant little engine, with mountain goat-like take off and consistent throttle input at low-speeds and for crawling over the crest of a dusty slope.
But in traffic it peaks so quickly there’s nothing smooth or progressive about it, you’re just going or stopping.
Hard.
Hard because the brakes also lack grace and feel; preferring a lunging stomping to wipe off speed (see-sawing on the front shocks) rather than a confident press of the pedal.
The fact it weighs less than 1.1 tonnes in both auto or manual is your advantage here.
The manual, however, is much better, presuming you remember what to do with the stalk sticking out of the floor.
In a few quick movements you’re already in fifth gear, but again, in the real world, fifth on the freeway commute, still revs sit on 3000rpm at 100km/h – like a Torana!
Also, on freeways, especially the likes of the M80 Ring Road where large sections are susceptible to high winds, so too is the slab-sided Jimny.
While on said freeway, trying to overtake means revving its proverbial bits off, building up speed to the point air rushes over the windscreen and the cabin is filled with the rumbles of brick-like aerodynamic efficiency.
When things calm down and you take a moment to appreciate the funky retro cabin design, the front passenger grab handle is one of the highlights (although the tough-looking hex-bolts are fake), and the use of space is clever considering there isn’t much.
Window switches are on the centre dash in front of your left hand because there’s literally nowhere to put it on the door trim, the Suzuki infotainment system is joyfully easy to use, and a conventional manual park brake means less electronic faff to go wrong.
However, the cupholder – singular – is totally useless sitting almost behind your left kidney, and the centre console bin is so small it should’ve been made into an armrest because there’s literally nowhere to put your left elbow.
Also redundant is the door bin, which is so thin you can barely get your hand in to retrieve anything.
This includes your phone which started the journey placed vertically for easy removal, but fell horizontal as you braked for traffic.
Pro tip: Connect your phone to USB ports and use the cable to winch it out.
The lack of a digital speedo means you’re guessing the set cruise control speed, until the dash cluster displays your needle is somewhere between 98 and 101km/h.
This begs the question why a digital readout couldn’t have found its way, given the guerilla-style level of anti-speed enforcement in our modern world.
The Jimny is a remarkable vehicle and pulls the enthusiasts.
A bloke named Eddie pulled up out front seeing the bright white 2019 Jimny on the nature strip.
His 20-something lilac Sierra, is still going strong, despite faded stickers, crackled paint in places and an interior true to its odometer reading nearly 200,000km.
We spoke for at least 15 minutes as he tried to wipe the smile off his face that he could get himself into the new one for less than 30 grand.
Personally, Jimny can’t be World Car of the Year, in my opinion, because anything less than a five-star ANCAP or EuroNCAP rating simply cannot be the best.
But don’t confuse this with disdain.
Engineering and design are both below expectations and surpasses them, because car buyers deserve life-saving five-star structural safety and airbags which deploy properly, and yet Suzuki have delivered exactly the Jimny people like Eddie want.
Jimny is an automotive oddity in 2019.
In so many ways it’s a brilliant little machine that farmers, off-roaders, campers and adventurers will and clearly do love because order books are full.
But despite having autonomous emergency braking, there’s no gentle way to say I wouldn’t put my family in one, and didn’t.
In full disclosure, it’s easy to love the old-school manual Jimny, but it belongs on a farm or in the bush off the beaten track, not on the road.
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