The 2013 Suzuki Jimny

The 2013 Suzuki Jimny compact SUV has gone on sale priced from £11,995 for the entry-level SZ3 model.

The 2013 model has received a number of exterior and interior design updates to help modernise appearance of the popular Jimny.

The design updates include a new front bumper and grille design, new design bonnet shape incorporating central air intake as well as repositioning of the front fog lamps. The new front bumper design has resulted in a slight increase in overall length of 30mm to 3,675mm – although Jimny remains the most compact SUV on sale in the UK.

On the inside there is a new seat fabric trim has been adopted for the SZ3; both SZ3 and SZ4 models have new design front and rear headrests as well as ISOFIX child seat mountings fitted as standard to the rear seats.

Suzuki has added Breeze Blue to the optional metallic paint range of four colours available for the higher specification SZ4 model with three metallic and one solid colour available for SZ3. Metallic paint is a £399 option.

There are two trim levels, the ‘SZ3’ and the ‘SZ4’ – the later offering synthetic leather/cloth front seats with ‘Jimny’ logo emblems, air conditioning, alloy wheels, leather trim steering wheel and rear privacy glass as standard equipment.

The Suzuki Jimny might be a compact SUV but it is a real 4x4 with push-button selectable four-wheel drive and high and low gear ratios – not something you see on the Nissan QASHQAI or Honda CR-V.

Both models are powered by a 1.3-litre engine outputting a modest 85PS, with 81lbft of torque delivered at 4,100 rpm; a flat torque curve means near maximum torque is delivered from as low as 2,500 rpm.

Suzuki quote the manual transmission model as returning an official 39.8mpg in combined cycle driving (38.7mpg for the automatic); respective CO2 outputs are 162 and 167g/km.