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Suzuki Swift Sport Hybrid | Test Drive
Words by Marco Mancino / Photos by Richard Montagner
I will always been cheering for secondary characters instead of the classic hero punctually ready to save the beautiful lady locked in a tower. I think it is too obvious to love perfection and that pleasing everyone is ultimately frustrating. That’s why when on the meeting room table there was the possibility to choose between a V8 sports car and the little Swift Sport, I didn’t fight with my colleagues and I happily opted for the small and updated Japanese hatchback.
The Swift Sport is one of the smallest sports cars you can find on the market and not only in terms of size and power delivered by its 4-cylinder, now combined with a 13.6 hp electric motor that joining the 1.4 internal combustion one are among the main aspects that characterize something more substantial than a simple midlife refreshment. So far so good – I mean – everyone is switching hybrid, so why not doing it with the Swift, 3.8 meters of a car that nevertheless has five doors and five regularly homologated seats. The luggage compartment is small, this still makes sense, but it is a car designed for the city and in the case of this sporty variant it is also about the infamous commute from home to work, possibly where you can really realize how the interesting marriage between engine and chassis works.
At least at first, what may leave you speechless is the fact that the overall power has decreased compared to outgoing model and goes from 140 hp to 129 hp, while the weight remains providentially around 1 ton, stopping the scales at 1,020 kg and demonstrating how the choice for an electric motor with reduced dimensions is able to offer greater liveliness without affecting the drivability through corners, a crucial aspect for cars of this type. Every self-respecting hot-hatch must in fact know how to do the dirty work well and therefore accompany you to the grocery store, take you on vacation and vent the accumulated stress by hitting the throttle hard, throwing one gear after another in the spasmodic run towards the red line of the tachometer.
In this case, the Swift Sport demonstrates that you must never reduce everything to a mere power argument, but rather looking at how it is delivered and let me tell ya the 4-cylinder pushes well, proving to be much more aggressive than the sound emitted by the couple of tailpipes at the rear. The 6-speed manual gearbox is quite precise and if it shows signs of fatigue only after putting it under stress, both the braking system and the steering follow a pace that I never thought possible with “just” 130 horses under the hood. The beauty is precisely the fact that the Swift Sport wants to be pulled by its neck and despite the excellent torque of 235 Nm, it is in the upper part of the rev counter that reminds you how important it is to carry little mass with you, especially when the curves become more insistent and you play with the weight balance, leaping from one bend to the next one like an aspiring rally star.
On a practical level we are facing a car without frills, with hard plastics, but everything you need for a perfect coexistence and therefore last-gen connectivity and a sat-nav that does its duty through a 7″ touch display placed in the middle of the dashboard. In front of the driver there are two analog dials and a small digital screen through which to monitor the use of the 48 volt battery positioned under the front seat. The seating position itself is comfortable and despite the aforementioned reduced dimensions of the body, at least for those sitting in front it feels pretty roomy with an almost perfect driving position. Aesthetically, the differences of the Sport compared to a traditional Swift are subtle, not at all invasive and as mentioned not even accentuated by the sound of the exhaust, but rest assured that once on the move, all you want to do is put down the gas and spend days on some winding road, taking advantage of that analogue taste offered by a latest generation car, but designed to entertain as the greatest hot-hatches have always done, often being better than more expensive and more powerful sports cars.
Looking at the overall power doesn’t do justice to the new Swift Sport exactly like the 0-100 kph of 9.1 seconds. According to current terms of comparison it might seem like an eternity, but it is how you move once you hang on the steering wheel that matters and for doing it you just need to spend € 23,850, much more than affordable also and above all for the young customers to whom the Swift points its look. The average consumption declared in the mixed cycle is around 4.7 l/100km, but it obviously depends on how you will use the hybrid side of the car, because if the road that divides your destination from home is as fun as the one I usually drive, the hybrid bit will mainly serve to put that extra 5.3 Nm on the table and optimize responsiveness at low rpm.
It will not be the noisiest, nor the most exotic or the easiest choice, but the smallest, probably the cheapest and the one you wouldn’t expect to find glued to the exhausts of a car with more horsepower and with a less cute and cuddly look. Suzuki combines the practical and rational nature of a city car suitable for mothers and grannies with the ability to bite the curves and deserve the Sport name and hide it under the usability and intelligence of a hybrid vehicle. It is my favorite character in the current panorama of XS-sized hot-hatches, because it knows how to give emotions without exaggeration and above all it knows how to go fast if you really push it for that. If, on the other hand, you prefer a traditional hero, there is wide choice between 300 horsepower hatchbacks that will continue to save damsels without effort and maintaining a perfect hairstyle even after the ending credits, but sometimes sweating for the final result has a completely different taste.
SUZUKI SWIFT SPORT HYBRID
Engine 4-cylinder, 1,373 cc Power 129 hp @ 5,500 rpm Torque 235 Nm @ 2,000-3,000 rpm
Traction Front wheel drive Transmission 6-speed manual gearbox Weight 1.020 kg
0-100 kph 9,1 sec Top speed 210 kph Price €23,850
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