The Suzuki Jimny is in the running to be this year’s Autocar Awards Readers’ Champion. Each day a different member of the Autocar team will champion one of the 17 cars, but only one can be the Icon of Icons and it’s up to you to decide - vote here.
Why is the Jimny the icon of icons? Let’s ask an owner, our head of video and second-generation Jimny log-book holder, Mitch McCabe:
“Generation upon generation of formidable off-roader. Its timeless, classic, ‘cute’ looks are matched with proper off-road hardware and when people say it will go anywhere, they mean on all continents, due to its accessible price tag.
“There have been various designs and special editions over the years, but the lineage that includes LJ10s, SJs, Samurais and Jimnys has been iconic in every form, particularly the new one.”
Ah yes, the new one. However strong a case Mitch puts forward, would the Jimny be here if Suzuki’s latest fourth-generation model had been a bit ugly, a bit bloated, a bit me-too?
Yet that Suzuki has got it so right, again, shows just what an icon the car is, and also how regulations can force positive creativity in the industry once in a while. The first Jimny, launched in 1970 and back then called the LJ10, was the first 4x4 built to Japan’s dinky kei-car regulations. It still meets those regs today, meaning the Jimny’s footprint will likely never grow. How often can you say that about a modern car?
The LJ10 was not only the first 4x4 kei-car, it was also the first model Suzuki had global success with. It looked like a little Jeep, performed like a little Jeep and was as customisable in its body as a Jeep, with hard and soft tops, no tops and pick-ups all part of its range.
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A great vehicle, that until
A shame they were so taken in for so long by vacuous 'tech' worship.
A winner
Reason being Suzuki have no need to make one and then import it, the sales figures have been that low in the past as have the 'professional' reviews. It's kind'a of an anti-Germanic way of doing things and I love it all the more for that.
Besides that it's fit for purpose, fun, realiable and depricates slower than a Porsche.
I think this is the first
I think this is the first icon I would bother voting for. I see these on farms regularly and farmers use them as a safer alternative to a quad (in fairness anything is a safer alternative to a quad).
Compared to the Porsche, a poor design hiding behind increasingly sophisticated electronics or the Fiat 500, a car no one seems to buy twice the Jimny is a car built for a purpose that achieves what it sets out to do.