2020 Mazda 2 vs Suzuki Swift

What's the difference?

The Mazda2 sure ain't cheap to buy, but neither is its spec list stingy. While the GT is taking the Mick a little bit at $26,000, it does have a lot of stuff, yet none of it is really a must have. With an alright engine bolted into a really good chassis, the 2 is the kind of fun small cars haven't been for a while. 

The bottom line is, any Mazda2 is a good choice - the depth of engineering is part of the reason it costs so much, and the ownership proposition is good with a long warranty. It's also very well-built, feels substantial despite being light and is packed with safety gear. And you can still get the entry-level Pure in manual...

The Swift Sport is a car I can’t get bored of. Even the auto is a fun little car which is great around town, but when the road offers you something more, the Swift is there to extract the best out of it.

The year-on-year improvements for this Series II are welcome too, bolstering an already compelling little package.

The 2 has been a funky car from the very beginning, after its name change from being the Mazda 121. They've looked pretty much the same for well over a decade, but there's no shame in that. The 2 is also proof of just how elastic the Kodo design language is, starting here in the small-car size and stretching happily to the massive CX-9 I had last week.

For 2020, the 2 has a new grille with the "wing" running along under the tweaked headlights to widen its stance. The fog lights are now integrated with the headlights and various small changes are alleged by Mazda to make the car look a bit more premium. I'm an unabashed fan of Mazda styling, so I'm onboard with these changes. Apart from the new alloys, which look a bit old-personish.

The cabin is largely untouched, apart from some new materials, including the oddly executed mix of blue-grey leather and a synthetic suede. The back seats, in particular, look like you've sat on them straight out of the bath. They're not bad, just odd. The lovely Mazda steering wheel, wrapped in leather, takes centre stage and the minimalist design of its bigger siblings has long since filtered down to the 2, and works a treat. Most of the materials feel nice and help justify the price, too.

Does anything quite say ‘fun on a budget’ more than this little car? I think not. The Sport takes the already attractive styling elements of the regular Swift range and gives it a bit of a macho injection with a bigger, angrier grille, wider front bumper, fake (I’d argue unnecessary…) carbon highlight bits, and a cool re-worked rear bumper which integrates its yappy-looking (but oddly, not sounding…) dual exhaust ports. The little Swift’s dimensions go a long way to making those neat 17-inch wheels look huge.

Other little bits bring the styling elements home, too, like the contrast black A-Pillars and roof, rounded out by the hidden rear door handles, and finished by the slightly blue glow of the LED light clusters.

Each change on its own would be minor, but they add up to something which has a lot more visual appeal than the regular Swift and many of its rivals.

Inside is a little less overhauled, with largely the same dash fittings as the rest of the Swift range. The big plus is the bucket seats which do a great job of holding you in place, while not being too tight or firm. There are a few gloss plastic additions strewn about, a new steering wheel which isn’t bad at all, and the colour screen in the dial cluster. That last one has some quaint performance-oriented features. It can show you how many Gs you’re pulling in corners, how much force the brakes are applying, and instantaneous boost, power, and torque gauges.

Well, look, it's not massive, this thing. At barely more than four metres long, you can't really expect too much from the tiny 2. Boot space starts at 250 litres and Mazda doesn't supply a seats-down figure, but trust me, a trip to Ikea for a Billy bookshelf is not on the menu.

Front-seat passengers score two cupholders and a phone-friendly tray forward of the shifter. Behind the slightly awkwardly placed cupholders is a square tray with a removable divider. In the back it's, uh, tumbleweeds - no cupholders, bottle holders or even an armrest.

The space in the back is as tight, as you might expect. When I sit behind my driving position - all not-towering 180cm of me - my knees touch the seatback, but it is soft. My feet go under the front seat, though, so that's fine for short trips. Headroom is surprisingly good, but I pity anyone squeezed between two adults in the centre seat.

There’s no getting around how small the Swift is, but still there’s room for improvement when it comes to storage in its cabin.

While the connectivity offered by the screen is welcome, there is only a single USB 2.0 port with which to charge or connect devices. This is joined by a single auxiliary port and 12v power outlet. There’s no fancy wireless charging or USB-C in the Swift range.

Annoyingly, there’s also not much in the way of storage for such loose objects. You get two cupholders under the climate controls, and a small shelf, but that’s really about it. The glovebox and door bins are also quite shallow, but the addition of a small bottle holder in each is welcome.

Thankfully, the Swift can be fitted with a centre console box as a dealer-fit option, one which we’d strongly recommend given the lack of storage as-is.

While there's no complaints in terms of the amount of room offered for front passengers thanks to those big seats and relatively high roof, rear passengers are largely forgotten.

The rear seat is really more of a foam bench with next to no contouring, storage is nearly non-existent with tiny bottle holders in the doors, a small binnacle in the centre behind the handbrake, and a single pocket on the back of the passenger seat.

Room also isn’t great for someone as tall as me (182cm) with my knees almost hard up against the front seat in my own driving position and a slightly claustrophobic roofline which my head touches.

The boot is also not one of the Swift’s strong points. With 265 litres on offer, it’s one of the smallest volumes in this class, and our test found the largest (124L) CarsGuide case fit snugly in with room for only a small duffle bag next to it. Overnighters only, then…

The Swift Sport does not have a spare wheel, with only a repair kit under the boot floor.

In the context of its segment rivals, the Swift Sport is perhaps not cheap, but as the last remaining hot hatch in the segment, it’s very hard to complain about our Swift’s $28,990 MSRP (or $31,990 drive-away) price-tag.

What does hurt, however, is the extra cost of picking an automatic transmission. The manual version is currently $2000 cheaper and, if you can drive one, is a much better car anyway. More on that later.

The Swift Sport’s headline feature is its upgraded drivetrain which puts it miles ahead of other Japanese small car hero models, but other features have not been forgotten.

In the box is an attractive set of 17-inch alloy wheels (wrapped in expensive low-profile Continental Conti Sport tyres in this case…), a 7.0-inch multimedia touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, built-in sat-nav, LED front lights and DRLs, specific Sport bucket seats for front occupants, a unique cloth interior trim, a D-Shaped leatherbound steering wheel, colour multi-function display in the dash cluster, as well as keyless entry and push-start.

Already amongst the best kit in this small car category (indeed, on par with one of its closest rivals, the Kia Rio GT-Line), the Swift Sport also has a surprisingly formidable active safety suite. Skip down to the safety section for more on that, but suffice to say it’s great for the segment, too.

On the performance front, the Swift Sport also gets its own suspension calibration, a wider track, and a six-speed torque converter auto in this case instead of the normal automatic Swift’s CVT.

The Flame Orange colour this car wears is new for the Series II, and all colours aside from Pure White Pearl carry a $595 premium.

There’s always the argument though, the same money will ultimately buy you a larger more practical hatch or even small SUV from any other brand. So, while you’re not short-changed for gear, you’ll really need to be after this little car’s extra driving engagement to really extract value.

The G15 in the name translates to Mazda's 1.5-litre naturally-aspirated SkyActiv four-cylinder. Slightly cheekily, Mazda says it has increased power to 82kW from 79kW, but that's because the old base Neo made do with the lower figure. Since 2017, the 2 has had 81kW and 139Nm and now it has (drumroll please) 82kW and 144Nm.

It's a front-wheel drive, obviously, with a six-speed automatic.

More torque is always welcome and, without giving any details, Mazda says the revisions have also reduced harmful emissions.

Simplicity incarnate, the Swift Sport employs the acclaimed 1.4-litre BoosterJet four-cylinder turbocharged engine from its Vitara SUV sibling.

Power is fantastic for this (usually sub 100kW) segment with 103kW/230Nm on offer. It feels every bit as punchy, too with max torque easily displacing the automatic’s 990kg kerb weight from just 2500rpm.

Unlike the regular automatic Swift, Suzuki made the correct decision to equip the Sport with a much better-feeling six-speed torque converter automatic.

The official fuel figure of 5.3L/100km is good, but you're not going to get that around town. By the time my week was done, I had a 7.9L/100km indicated figure, which is a solid miss, but no surprise given you need to give it a bit of welly to get it going.

In automatic form, the Swift Sport wears an official combined fuel consumption of 6.1L/100km. Seems unachievable for a hot hatch? Surprisingly, no.

I spent my week driving the Swift how it wanted to be driven and was surprised to find the computer reporting just 7.5L/100km at the end of my week. This was extra surprising because on three previous real-world tests in the manual I recorded much closer to 8.0L/100km.

The Swift Sport is only capable of drinking mid-range 95RON unleaded petrol, and it has a tiny 37-litre fuel tank.

There is just one annoying thing about the Mazda2 driving experience; the fact that it's a bit slow on the uptake. Well, not necessarily slow, but the transmission and throttle take their sweet time sorting themselves out, especially when you want to get out of a corner. Being a naturally aspirated engine, you have to rev the 2 to get some go, which explains the solid miss in the fuel-economy figures.

The last 2 I drove was manual, and it felt a lot more peppy and easier to get going quickly if I needed it to. 

Hitting the Sport switch improves the throttle response but the transmission just gets dumber, sadly. 

The rest of it, though, is mint. The inclusion of the clever G-Vectoring system on the smallest Mazda was something I liked in 2017, and still do. Along with a firm-but-compliant suspension setup, the 2 has lovely pointy steering. The way it responds to a turn of the wheel is enthusiastic, without being worrisome.

The G-Vectoring Plus system mimics a tiny lift of the throttle by reducing torque to the front wheels and shifting the weight forward to the front tyres. This makes the car quite chuckable, almost reaching the warm-hatch territory occupied by GT-Line branded Euros from Renault and Peugeot. The Plus bit means that the brake-based torque vectoring has been added to the 2 for better performance out of corners.

The ride is perhaps a little firmer than you might expect from a small hatch - even taking into account a short wheelbase and relatively high-profile tyres - but that does translate into the 2 being good to drive if you're not an enthusiast, and fun to drive if you are.

The Swift Sport really lives the ‘fun’ of the Suzuki brand. It’s light and agile, with more than enough power to put a smile on your face.

It’s not at the level of being a track-ready machine like the Ford Fiesta ST, but that’s not really the point of this car. No, the Swift Sport excels at extracting joy out of the corners and straights of your otherwise boring daily commutes. It’s fun to throw around roundabouts, to blast down alleyways, and wrangle through long bends.

Honestly, you’ll probably get more of your money’s worth out of thrashing the Swift Sport on daily commutes than you will coddling a sportier machine in your garage for weeks at a time.

The steering is simple and direct, but owing to this car’s sub 1-tonne kerb weight, the front tyres proved skittish, both under acceleration and cornering.

Understeer is kept partially in check by the firm suspension, but the harsh ride might not be for everyone. Harsh bumps are easily transmitted into the cabin, and the low-profile rubber doesn’t do much to abate road noise, especially at freeway speeds.

The seats are comfortable though, and visibility is great, so the Sport is no less of an excellent little city commuter than the rest of the Swift range. You can park it pretty much anywhere.

Having tested this car multiple times though, I must recommend the manual. The auto, as tested here, is fine. But the manual really brings this little hatch alive, giving you control over every faucet of those little joyful moments I mentioned earlier, so you can extract every little bit out of this car’s simple but brilliant formula.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it has a six-speed torque converter rather than a dreaded CVT but it just felt a little bit more pedestrian than the manual version, even with paddle-shifters… You’ll save two grand by selecting the manual. Worth thinking about.

Another area where the Swift surprises (and not just at this top-spec Sport price-point) is through its active safety suite.

Included is auto emergency braking with forward collision alert, adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning (but no lane keep assist), something called ‘weaving assist’. The series II as tested here has the addition of blind spot monitoring and rear cross traffic alert.

It’s missing a few smaller items like driver attention alert and traffic sign recognition, but the Sport’s active safety suite is nonetheless excellent for this class.

The Swift Sport also carries a maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating as of 2017, and has the expected passive refinements of x airbags, electronic traction, stability, and brake controls, dual ISOFIX chid seat mounting points and three top-tether points.

Mazda owners score a five year/unlimited-kilometre warranty, along with five years of roadside assist, which replaced the previous paid scheme in 2019.

The company does persist with the annoying 12 months/10,000km servicing regime. It's probably less annoying for an obvious city car, but it's worth knowing. Service prices are capped for the first five services and are either $300 (first and third) or $330, with extras listed on the website, such as brake fluid and a cabin filter.

The Swift is covered by Suzuki’s five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty which is on par with Japanese rivals, bested only by the Kia Rio with its seven year/unlimited kilometre promise.

Also updated is the brand’s capped price servicing program which has the Sport visiting the shop once a year or every 10,000km (much better than six-monthly intervals which the brand used to have). Each visit will cost between $239 and $429 for the first five years, for an average yearly cost of $295. That’s super cheap.