Suzuki Swift Sport improves its tech game

Wednesday, 6 May 2020

Suzuki Swift Sport

Suzuki New Zealand has detailed a few updates inbound for the Swift Sport as part of a mid-life refresh.

Design changes include an optional black roof and three new body colours; Flame Orange, Speedy Blue and Ablaze Red. The rest of the Swift Sport's looks is unchanged, as is the 103kW/230Nm 1.4-litre turbocharged four-banger under the bonnet.

More tweaks have occurred on the safety side of things. The Swift Sport now gets blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, rear parking sensors and heated mirrors as standard.

The design is largely the same, save for the new black roof option. It's definitely a box we'd tick.

This is additional to an already comprehensive safety pack that includes adaptive cruise control, a feature some vastly more expensive vehicles charge extra for.

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You can have the black roof with an orange, red or blue body colour. What's your pick?

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Though we'd have to say, the classic yellow would look best with the new roof.

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Other changes include a new digital speedo readout in the small screen nestled in between the analogue dials.

“Swift Sport owners are technically savvy individuals so the increased safety technology will have strong appeal to this audience,” says Suzuki New Zealand General Manager of Marketing, Gary Collins.

“The Swift Sport has an amazing reputation in our market, dominating recent small car awards and an Automobile Association People’s Choice winner. With the safety specification enhancement and exciting new colours, we anticipate the new model will attract even more demand.”

With new features comes a new price, however. Manual Swift Sports now ask $29,990 ($30,500 with the optional black roof) while auto versions are now $30,990 ($31,500 with the black roof).

When we reviewed the then-new third-generation Swift Sport, we said that the manual is great fun and gives you excellent control over a car that has unremittingly sporting character. It's fantastic on the open road, with crisp shifts and relatively long legs for open-road cruising. It's still fun around town, although it doesn't quite have that snick-snick feel at lower speeds that the very best manuals offer.

However, the six-speed automatic is brilliant all the time. The turbo engine is all about torque and the gearing of the automatic seems to gel perfectly with the power delivery.

Basically, it's a win regardless of what transmission you opt for.