Suzuki Jimny review: Oooh, it’s awful, but it’ll make you grin

Apart from poor brakes, woeful performance and a cramped interior, this is still a good buy.

Suzuki Jimny, from $23,990 (manual)

Vegetable enthusiasts are forever telling us that you can make delicious food from nothing but bark, seeds and roots. They say that with patience, a pestle and a mortar, you’ll be able to produce something just as appetising as a shepherd’s pie. What’s more, they say there are now plenty of vegan restaurants, staffed by bright young things who have excellent colons and wonderful digestive systems.

All of this, however, defeats the point of being a vegan. Because if you’re making moreish food, people will want second helpings. So they’ll eat more than they need, and pretty soon the world won’t be able to keep up with demand. If you want to go vegan to save the planet, the food you make, eat and serve to friends has to be disgusting. People should take as much as they can manage without vomiting – just enough to stay alive. That way the planet stands a chance.

It’s much the same story with everything. If you want to save the world for future generations, you can’t dress up your new life choices in butter and tinsel and hundreds and thousands. If you want the world to work for your grandchildren’s grandchildren, then you have to be cold, hungry, smelly and uncomfortable until the day you die.

In one respect, however, things needn’t be so bad. At present I have a Range Rover. Actually, I have two: one for Sunday best and one for bringing sheep carcasses out of the pond. This is wildly unnecessary. No one needs two Range Rovers. And I’m delighted to say that, for less than $25,000, there’s a solution. It’s called the Suzuki Jimny, and even at that price you get aircon, cruise control, DAB radio, switchable four-wheel drive, a low-range gearbox and electronically managed diffs. That’s got your attention, hasn’t it?

And there’s more, because you get virtually identical styling to the Mercedes G-wagen. Yes, the Suzuki is a lot smaller, but there’s a solution to that: simply stand nearer to it and you’ll be completely fooled. Everyone was. I drive a lot of fancy cars in the course of my job but none got quite so many admiring glances as the Jimny did. People were stepping into the road and taking pictures.

Let’s get the drawbacks out of the way first. It’s not a Tardis. It’s small on the outside and on the inside too. The back seats are nigh on useless, so you may as well fold them flat and treat it as a two-seater.

Then there’s the performance. Or rather, there isn’t. The time it takes to get from 0-100km/h depends on how much of a hash you make of the tricky clutch and sloppy gearbox. And the top speed depends on how much pain your ears can take. Using headphones, I got it up to an indicated 140km/h, but it felt like a spaceship on re-entry.

Comfort? Nope. This is definitely not a strong suit, I’m afraid. At slow speeds around town it’s not as bad as its forerunner, the Suzuki SJ, but it’s still pretty crashy, and at speed – by which I mean about 60km/h – it’s fidgety and prone to crosswinds. Plus, the brakes aren’t up to much.

And apart from poor brakes, a bad ride, woeful performance, a cramped interior, a baggy gearbox and an odd clutch, it’s also not that economical. Mainly because it is geared, in top, at 30km/h per 1,000 revs. I have no idea why.

But if it starts to snow, and you’ve got to get across your farm to repair a broken fence post, then the Suzuki is brilliant. It skips along like a fallow deer, refusing to get stuck in even the deepest mud. If you fitted it with off-road tyres, it would get to places that would defeat a Land Rover. And not just because it’s little and light. It also has good angles of approach; better in fact than the new Jeep Wrangler’s. It didn’t even seem to mind wet grass, or “green ice” as we call it round these parts. Nothing’s unstoppable, but this gets close.

The Jimny, then, may look chic and urban and cool but underneath, it’s a serious farmer’s tool. It’s also a hoot. As you bounce along with your ears bleeding, you’ll have a smile on your face. I put it in rear-wheel drive at one point and turned off the traction control, and in one of my fields I was reminded what it was like to be five. I’d like to thank it for that.

Yes, it’s riddled with problems you don’t get in bigger cars. But it’s bloody cheap, and with a ladder chassis it’ll be tough. So if you want a Range Rover, go ahead and buy one. But I can tell you this: apart from legroom in the back, all you “need” from a Range Rover you can get from this little Suzuki.

Suzuki Jimny

Engine: 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol (75kW/130Nm)

Average fuel: 6.6 litres per 100km

Transmission: Five-speed manual or four-speed automatic, four-wheel drive

Price: From $23,990 (manual)

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars