2017 Kia Picanto vs Suzuki Swift

What's the difference?

Is the new generation Kia Picanto a can-do or a can’t-do car? We spent a week living with the Picanto S manual to find out.

Pssst. Want a media leak? Here’s one for you. Rumour has it Kia wants us to pronounce the name of its micro car the Picanto a certain way. Word is it wants the ‘cant’ part to be said as you’d say ‘canteen’ and definitely not in the way you’d say ‘can’t’. It’s a positive perception thing – you know, it’s a car that ‘can’. 

Of course it’s all gossip, but does Kia really have anything to be worried about? Is the new generation Kia Picanto a can-do or a can’t-do car? Rivals are thin on the ground in this micro car segment but the Holden Spark impressed us hugely when we drove it. There’s also the stylish Fiat 500 and the super popular Mitsubishi Mirage.

See our Kia Picanto range review here

We spent a week living with the Picanto S manual. We picked up the kids, did the shopping, commuted in peak hour traffic, took it on our regular test loop and discovered uncharted ‘for us’ narrow urban laneways. So what can and can’t it do? We found out.

The Suzuki Swift was a mainstay of the first-new-car market, offering bulletproof reliability, good dynamics and, above all else, accessible pricing.

But then it went from mainstay to just staying. And staying. And staying. In fact, it barely changed between 2005 and 2011, and then changed only a little bit for what Suzuki called its “second generation”.

So, this 2017 all-new model is a pretty big deal. A new platform, new engines and new technology headline the dramatically overhauled Swift line-up, as Suzuki tries to stoke the fires of interest in one of its most enduring and important models.