Fire up the... Suzuki Kizashi (UK version)

PART of the problem with new cars these days is that what you see isn't usually what you get. Unless you pay for it as an optional extra, that is.

It's one of the car industry's worst kept secrets that paying for life's little luxuries can add hundreds - sometimes even thousands - of pounds to the price of your pride and joy, but Suzuki is offering an intriguing alternative for anyone infuriated by the confusing, expensive and downright mind-boggling world of the options list.

Put simply, the Kizashi doesn't have one. There's no messing about with gadgets and gizmos on this one - it's £21,995, take it or leave it.

Nor, by the way, is this an accidental reprint of a roadtest that's already appeared in these pages. Life On Cars did get to drive the Kizashi earlier this year, but that was very much a test model to see whether us fussy Brit buyers would go for the idea of a Suzuki saloon, whereas this one is the finished product, subtly retrimmed and re-engineered with the UK's motorists in mind.

That original test version got the thumbs up because it offered buyers things they couldn't get elsewhere and it's much the same story here, with a package that offers saloon virtues without the sheer size of say, a Mondeo or an Insignia. More importantly, while Suzuki's thumbed through the options list on your behalf they've been quite generous with it - the Kizashi's got full leather trim, plenty of toys up front to keep you entertained when you're not pressing on, and a 178bhp, four cylinder petrol engine when you are.

Yet I'd raise the biggest eyebrow of all at the transmission, because unlike just about any other saloon of its size you can press a button and a four wheel drive system comes to life, which should come in handy if you live off your local council's gritting routes. It's mated to a CVT automatic gearbox, and while you can change gear manually using paddles on the steering column, Schumacher-style, the car's character suits leaving it in auto and letting the technology do the hard bit.

The Kizashi then, is the perfect car for people who don't really like cars very much. If you're looking for a no-nonsense package which will get you where you need to be, in all weathers, take a look at one of the 500 Suzuki's planning on shipping over.

Burning rubber at the Jaguar Land Rover factory

IT’S NOT every day one of Britain's biggest car companies lends you an enormous factory car park to play with.

Yet that’s exactly what Jaguar Land Rover did when they lent Aintree Circuit Club the use of part of their Halewood factory – home of the Range Rover Evoque – for an AutoSolo event earlier today, as part of the club’s calendar of motorsport events.

AutoSolo is a great form of entry-level motorsport and a bit of a petrolhead thrill in its own right, because you can enter in pretty much anything in have and blast. The inaugural event at the Jaguar Land Rover factory attracted a pretty eclectic entry list, with everything from cheap ‘n’ cheerful Micras and Corsas, hot hatch classics like the Peugeot 205 GTI and the Golf GTI, and rear wheel drive roadsters like the Caterham Seven and the Mazda MX-5.

The event, held in the factory’s 50th anniversary year, saw an expansive car park converted into a twisty course, which more than thirty cars took a crack at trying to complete.

The competitors made the best of the changeable conditions and used the damp course to get some of the more colourful entries seriously sideways – for me, the highlight of the day was watching one driver drifting his diminutive Suzuki Whizzkid!

If you’d like to find out more about AutoSolo events in the near future, visit the Aintree Circuit Club website for details of forthcoming fixtures.

Aintree Circuit Club are also organising this year's Ormskirk MotorFest, which takes place on August 26. Keep an eye on Life On Cars over the coming weeks for special coverage of the event...

Fire up the... new Suzuki Swift Sport

AT THE bottom of my garden lives a particularly persistent spider.

Each and every morning, without fail, it spins a web right above my back gate, and every other morning I'll forget it's there and get a faceful of silk and flies.

It's annoying, but I wouldn't exactly move house out of arachnid-induced frustration. It was much the same story with the outgoing version of Suzuki's Swift Sport, which had a couple of annoying niggles. In particular, the boot lip's always been a bit too high, which meant lifting bags or suitcases into the back was harder than it should've been. Yet I could forgive it that - and just about everything else - because of the way it went.

The old Swift Sport is still one of the best handling hatchbacks I've ever got my hands on. All of which makes this new version the difficult second album from Suzuki Swift - given how brilliant the original was, surely the larger, lardier replacement can only be a bit worse?

The Swift Sport's not a numbers sort of car but given that's where most of the improvements have been made I'll hit you with some anyway; the 1.6 engine now knocks out 136bhp, making it punchier than its predecessor's, but with carbon emissions now at 147g/km it's cleaner too, and you'll get 44mpg on a good run, 10% more than before. It's also a little larger inside and out, a little quicker and - naturally - a fraction pricer than the old one. It's also something you can't stack up with statistics - to my mind, it's better looking too.

So has it strayed from the winning formula? It's not the reassuring story the minor irritations tell you; that rev-happy engine's still a tiny bit thrashy around town, the interior's still a bit gloomy on longer trips and yes, the boot lip's still too high. It's probably not the best supermini if you're 117 years old, but if you're 17 and value thrills over frills here's the good news.

The new Swift Sport is brilliant.

Because it's a smoother drive the steering doesn't talk to quite as animatedly any more but in every other respect the new one's a belter - if you value handling over grip and power which is better being used on the road than bragged about at the bar, then you'll love the Sport.

It isn't perfect and it's a car of few superlatives, but only because there's no accurate way to measure how much fun it is.

Fire up the... Suzuki Kizashi

THERE is, thanks to mankind's obsession with pigeonholing absolutely everything, a distinct heirachy when it comes to buying a new car.

Whether it's the new Mclaren at the very top end of the motoring marketplace, or the parsimonious Nissan Pixo at the bottom, everything is divided up into convenient classes and segments, so that any particular car is roughly the same size and shape as the ones it's competing against. Anything that breaks the rules just confuses Britain's notoriously fussy buyers.

So can Suzuki's Kizashi, which the Japanese are considering bringing to our shores, carve a niche? It is, after all, an unusual prospect; a Mondeo-style saloon that's smaller than a Mondeo, or an Insignia, or indeed any of the mid-range repmobiles usually found lurking on the outside lanes of Britain's motorways. It honestly could go either way, being either usefully smaller when it comes to parking and navigating the urban jungle, or not as capacious when you call on it to be a cargo freighter. Whatever you make of it, it's a bit bigger than, say, Volkswagen's Jetta but not quite the full Passat.

What it does do though is a passable impression of Doctor Who's TARDIS, because while its smaller exterior does translate into an air of agility from behind the wheel, your passengers in the back seats will swear they've stepped into a larger car. The interior might be a little darker than I'd like, thanks to the black materials used throughout, but boy is it spacious.

It also carries off the clever trick of looking a bit like every other contemporary saloon you've clapped eyes on - the front's got a hint of Golf to it, and the side profile a hint of Mondeo, but again that's not a bad thing.

Expect to pay £21,995 for the automatic, four-wheel-drive version they're bringing to this country's roads, and while I can't see it wiping out the Mondeo's dominance there's definitely a gap in the marketplace for this kind of car.

If you're looking for a sturdy saloon which is a smidgen smaller than the rest of the pack, go and start pestering your local dealer for it.

Video: Suzuki Swift Sport

David Simister puts Suzuki's Swift Sport through its paces in the Yorkshire Dales, home to some of the most demanding roads in Britain:

To read the original road test click here.

Video: Life On Cars visits the SMMT Test Day

Champion motoring correspondent David Simister gives his verdict on some of 2011's most important new cars at the Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire:

Full road tests of all the cars in this video will appear in the Fire Up The... section in the next few weeks.

Geneva Motorshow: The Life On Cars top 10

SWITZERLAND'S biggest motorshow isn't just about shiny new supercars, apparently, although looking at some of the reports from this year's Geneva Motorshow you'd be forgiven for thinking it was.

But between the brand new stunners from Lamborghini and Pagani were a few cars you might actually be able to buy, so the new models* strutting their stuff were a brilliant - but mixed - bag.

Here's what Life On Cars is saving up for:

1) Suzuki Swift Concept S

The closest yet to a replacement for the wonderful Swift Sport Life On Cars tested last month. Here's hoping!

2) Lamborghini Aventador


The long-awaited replacement for the Murciélago, complete with a new V12 churning out no less than 700bhp. Worth waiting a decade for.

3) Jaguar XKR-S


Jaguar celebrates the 50th anniversary of unveiling the E-Type at Geneva with a 550bhp modern equivalent. You know you want one.

4) Aston Martin Virage


Right on cue is Aston's ripposte to the XKR-S, boasting 490bhp from the familiar 6.0 litre V12 and a name not seen since the company's coupes of the early Nineties.

5) Ford B-MAX


The Blue Oval's response to the Vauxhall Meriva, with equally clever rear doors.


6) Hyundai i40


What do you mean Korea can't do smooth and stylish? This sleek Mondeo rival bets you a fiver it can.

7) Alfa Romeo 4C


Straight in the footsteps of the 8C supercar comes this mid-engined, two-seater, rear-wheel drive Alfa sports car. Think of it as an Italian Elise.

8) Audi A3 concept


Not too sure about the saloon styling for the next A3, but the 408bhp V8's got to stay.

9) Range Rover "Evoque"


Not too sure whether this is what Land Rover meant when it was launching the smallest, lightest and greenest Range Rover model ever, but I like it anyway.

10) MINI Rocketman


As a former Mini owner this was the real star of the show, because it takes BMW's reinvention of the classic small car back to basics. I'll probably get panned by my fellow Mini enthusiasts for saying it, but I like it. A lot.

*The new models don't include Bertone's stunning B99 concept, which Jaguar has now said won't make production. Shame.

Read more on the Geneva Motorshow in the new Life On Cars Magazine, out this week.

The key to really enjoying your next car

EVEN though it's unlikely I'll ever drive the Huayra, the latest unaffordable, unpronouncable supercar from automotive pornography purveyors Pagani, I'm fairly certain of its best feature.

The key, it seems, to this millionaire motor is the key itself. It's actually a carefully sculpted scale model of the Zonda supercar's replacement and the latest proof that a long-held theory of mine is actually true; that the keys for your car are so much more important than being just tools to start it up each morning.

Take the Suzuki Swift Sport I've just spent a week with. This cracking little car is one of the best hot hatches on sale today, as you'll read elsewhere on Life On Cars, and - being both a riot to drive and small, cheap and kind to the environment - the perfect car for Cameron's Britain.

It's just a shame that the apologetic slab of plastic that serves as a key, distinguished only by the company's ‘S' logo and two plipper buttons, gives you no clue to the character of the car itself.

My Rover's even worse, because while there's no car logo to give away what you drive, people would guess it's something cheap and plasticky because that's exactly how the keyfob is. A regal and refined old car, with distant allusions to the glorious P6 of the late Sixties, has been ruined by a rubbish key.

Aston Martin keys, on the other hand, are beautiful crystal affairs, which you place carefully into a crevace in the dashboard as though it's a plot device from an Indiana Jones film, but you don't have to own a supercar to get yourself a superkey. I have, for instance, never been a fan of the current Vauxhall Corsa, but it does at least have in its favour a beautifully made key that's strangely enjoyable to use. This is important consumer advice, honest!

Admittedly the key is just one of a mountain of parts used to make your motor, but I reckon more manufacturers should follow Pagani's lead and show a bit more flair with it.

Now, if only I could tell you whether the Huayra is as good as its key...

Fire up the... Suzuki Swift Sport

Ever wanted to own your very own sports car but never could because you'd struggle to get the kids, the shopping and your suitcase in the back?

Well anyone familiar with the letters G, T and I will already know you can, because ever since the hot hatch was invented in the late Seventies it's been showing the family man the sort of full-throttle thrills he'd normally miss out on. Whether it's the Golf GTi of the Seventies, the Peugeot 205 GTi of the Eighties, or the Renault Clio Williams of the Nineties, chances are there's a go-faster shopping car from your generation that proved you can pack both a big punch and a big boot.

Fast forward to 2011 and Suzuki's Swift Sport, yours for a smidgen under thirteen grand, brings the familiar formula bang up to date. Although it's based on the outgoing model rather than the new range brought in last year, it mixes funky styling with sporty touches like a rear spoiler, alloys all round and bucket seats on the inside, and definitely looks the part if you're a keen driver.

With the same practical touches and easy-revving nature as its slower siblings in the Swift range, it's a doddle to drive around town. It's a shame the boot doesn't offer the room of larger rivals like the Fiesta or Corsa, but it's very easy to get comfortable inside, with plenty of space front and rear. But you can do all that with a normal hatchback, which is why to see the Sport in its element you have to get off the housing estates and onto the hills, like the Yorkshire Dales.

Take it to somewhere like the Buttertubs Pass, one of Britain's toughest driving roads, and you'll see exactly where the Sport shines. Out here, its handling is as impressive as much more expensive sports cars like Mazda's MX-5, and the 126bhp engine eggs you on into every corner, giving you all the confidence you could ever ask for.

After tackling the Buttertubs I could have pulled over, but I carried on, heading right through the Dales and across the whole of Cumbria, simply because it's a car you never get tired of driving. It's never anything less than a giggle from behind the wheel, and when you do decide you've had enough fun for the day the price and practicality prove plenty to smile about.

Forget your posey, pricey sports cars - get yourself one of these and get into the countryside. This is one of the best hot hatches you can buy today.

As published in The Champion on February 16, 2011

The only person who knows whether you'll like a new car is you

AN ADMISSION. I actually know very little about the thorough business of test driving cars.

Every week, provided you actually make it past the news, the entertainment, the classifieds and the dating ads to The Champion's motoring page - and haven't end up there by mistake because you're actually looking for the sport section - you're greeted not only with this column, but on increasing occasions by a road test of something new and flashy I've just driven.

Unfortunately, I think it's given off the impression I actually know a thing or two about new cars.

I was a bit embarrassed when a high-ranking member of Lancashire County Council rang up the other day and asked for advice on which of the current crop of the superminis she should invest her hard-earned into. I suggested Ford's Fiesta (this column's car of the year, 2009) and Suzuki's sprightly Swift (runner up, 2010), with the likes of the Fabia, Panda and Jazz worth looking into. But could I reccomend the Polo, the Yaris or the current Clio? Nope, because I haven't test driven any of them.

Nor is my own patchy record of cars I've actually owned anything to go by, unless you're particularly partial to the more rot-prone motors produced decades ago by the long-gone British Leyland empire. The only car I've ever owned that was totally reliable was a £100 Renault 5, which I had to scrap in the end after discovering its main construction material was rust.

While I can tell you fairly confidently that the new Ford Focus will be one of 2011's biggest hits and what a 414bhp Lexus IS-F feels like under full throttle, the only way to make an informed decision about what new car to buy is still to try it out for yourself. It's as much about taste as it is technology, and the only person who knows whether you'll like the revamped Vauxhall Corsa is you.

Don't get me wrong; there's some cracking corkers of cars on sale right now, and as long as I'm allowed to drive them I'll let you know what I think. But the best bet's to ring up your friendly local dealer and ask to have a go.