Suzuki Kizashi 2010 News

The petrol-electric tease, which has little chance of going into production, is part of a Kizashi double-act that also unleashes a turbocharged Apex concept with 225 kiloWatts to feed its all-wheel drive system.Suzuki is keen to get more airplay for the Kizashi and the American concept cars are the latest effort, tapping opposite ends of the performance spectrum.The Hybrid uses an EcoCharge system with a smaller 2.0-litre engine and a 15-kiloWatt electric motor, with a lithium-ion battery to juice the system for extra acceleration. It's similar to the e-assist system used in the Buick LaCrosse and take an approach like the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic.There is also a stop-start system and Suzuki claims a 25 per cent fuel economy improvement, while the visual tweaking for New York includes blue-tinged white bodywork, lightweight alloy wheels, special headlamps, blue lighting on the number plate and LED foglamps.It's ironic that The EcoCharge Kizashi is unveiled as Suzuki is pursuing powerplant choices with its new minority partner, Volkswagen.But Suzuki plans real-world tests and is not ruling out a production version.The Apex turbo is a different deal and, like the Australian-made Kizashi Turbo shown at the Australian International Motor Show last year, is a headliner intended to prove the car can cope with far more than its standard 2.4-litre four-cylinder engine.It's the second time Suzuki has gone for a turbocharged concept car, but this time it is aiming to eliminate the shortcomings of the RRM package - also used on the Australian show car - with bodywork that's inspired by Suzuki's GSX-R racing motorcycles.

... to make an impact against classy rivals including the Mazda6, Honda Accord Euro and even the homegrown Toyota Camry. Its ultra-competitive pricing, predictable handling, high levels of safety - just upgraded to five stars with a driver's knee airbag - sporty styling and quiet refinement - even on rough country roads - make it perfect for small Australian families. The car is so well engineered, the company has already introduced an all-wheel-drive version and is thinking of a turbocharged engine using the same chassis and suspension. WANT MORE? First drive of the Sport by Paul Gover Review by Paul Gover First drive by Paul Gover

The company pulled the wraps on a Kizashi turbo concept car and now asks customers whether they want one.  Suzuki Australia boss Tony Severs says they started working on the concept project after initial positive media feedback for the car’s chassis and handling dynamics.“There was one minor criticism; that this car can handle more power,” he says.  “We have listened and acted.”He says it is now up to motor show visitors to provide feedback before they make a decision to go into production.  The turbo version features a Californian Road Race Motorsport turbo used in other Suzukis and Mitsubishi Lancer.It pumps out 179kW, 48kW more than the standard version with 330Nm of torque, up 100Nm.  Company spokesman Andrew Elllis says the turbocharger is available for about $7000, so the premium over the standard model would be more than that for the extra labour and other features.They include a lower ride height, uprated brakes, a front strut brace for increased rigidity, new rear deck spoiler and 19-inch alloy wheels wrapped in 40-series low profile sports rubber.The concept model comes in front-wheel drive with a six-speed manual, but company spokesman Andrew Ellis says Road race Motorsports is now working on an AWD version and a CVT model.Queensland importers Suzuki Auto Company did not know the concept was being produced.  New boss Adam Le Fevre it was “testament to the forward thinking of the company as a whole”.“We would be interested in it, but reliability would have to be up there with the Suzuki standard,” he says.Suzuki also showcased the updated Swift unveiled this month at the Paris Motor Show.  It comes with 1.2 and 1.4-litre direct injected petrol engines and a 1.5 litre K Series petrol engine, but Devers says powertrains have not yet been confirmed for Australia.  It is expected to arrive in the first half of next year. Prices are also yet to be confirmed.Devers says the model will have better performance, economy and emissions and come standard with ESP, seven airbags including a knee airbag and will has achieved a five-start Euro NCAP safety rating.“It will have the most comprehensive safety packages in its sector,” he says.  He says Suzuki has increase sales this year by 25 per cent while the market had risen 15 per cent, mainly due to the success of Swift.“It reached the magical one million sales mark faster than any car in the company’s history and racked up 63 car of the year awards in 19 different countries,” he says.“It also provided the basis for Suzuki’s dominance in the Junior World Rally Championship, securing two driver’s and manufacturer’s titles.  And we’re on target for a third in 2010.” Concept Kizashi Turbo specificationsEngine                        Turbocharged and intercooled JB24 2.4 litre in-line fourBoost                         7psiPower                        179 kW at 4800 rpmTorque                       330 Nm at 4400 rpmTransmission              Six-speed manualWheels                      19 inch Enkei RPF1 alloysTyres                         245/40 x 19 inch Pirelli P-Zero

Hopefully – the nimble Suzuki Kizashi is getting some heavy duty performance upgrades for the Australian International Motor Show. Suzuki’s nifty little number successfully shoehorned its way into the mid-sized sedan segment this year and is presently giving the Honda Accord Euro and Mazda6 some solid competition.  The Kizashi Turbo Concept is the product of specialist Suzuki tuner Road Race Motorsports’ bespoke intervention. The addition of a 16G turbocharger, Extreme spray injector, blow-off valve and a Velocity air intake, has taken the standard Kizashi 2.4-litre engine’s output of 138kW up to an altogether more inspiring 216kW – and right into Subaru Impreza WRX STi and Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution territory. Bigger, 19-inch wheels running Dunlop high-performance tyres, a Delta Tech Engineering rear wing and lowered suspension complete the picture externally.

He is - or was - Hirotaka Ono - a visionary who re-invented the Japanese brand and changed everything, from boosting the quality of its cars to creating the can-do attitude among senior managers that's essential for the success of any car company. Ono had a giant advantage because he was married to the daughter of company founder, Osama Suzuki.He was able to use his family connection to ramrod a range of changes which would have been impossible for anyone else, especially a 40-something revolutionary in a country which usually puts age and experience ahead of youth and enthusiasm. Even so, he still had to walk the walk on everything from design and driving enjoyment to bottom-line financial deals.The award winning Suzuki Swift is an Ono car, so too is the current Grand Vitara, as well as the Kizashi. His track record also includes the less-successful second-generation XL7, thankfully only sold in the USA, but everyone makes an occasional mistake. Ono died too early at the end of 2007, but not before he inspired the cars coming through Suzuki today and forecast the global financial crisis - as well as planning the way his company would react to the challenge."Thanks to Mr Ono we have learned what we can do. He inspired us," says Tak Hayasaki, managing director of Suzuki Australia. Hayasaki has his own challenges in trying to lift Suzuki's share of Australia's annual car sales from its current 2.4 per cent to around six per cent, but he knows he has the strongest lineup in the company's history.The Alto is too small for a lot of people, but a $12,990 driveway bottom line makes plenty of sense with six airbags, ABS and ESP, as well as alloy wheels. The Swift is getting very old but is still a good car, the Grand Vitara is a safe choice and the SX4 does a good enough job.Kizashi is the game-changer for Suzuki, the same as the first Mazda6 and Accord Euro were for Mazda and Honda, combining Euro-type driving enjoyment with Japanese quality.This week the company is adding an all-wheel drive car to the Kizashi line, the Sports, and believes it can boost its sales by 100 cars a month. That's 50 per cent of the current volume. It's a big call for a car which already goes head-to-head with Mazda6 and Euro and now faces up to the might of the Subaru Liberty, the car that convinced Australians about all-wheel drive.As he looks forward, with a new Swift before the end of the year - not   that you would pick it as all-new from pictures - Hayasaki knows where the credit goes. "I have to thankyou to Mr Ono for what he has given us. He proved that we can do it."

After leading the world on so many fronts - from quality to comfort and reliability - they have been hit badly by the global financial crisis.  Toyota and Honda and many of the others wound back dramatically at the onset of the GFC, not just on their production lines but also in their motorsport programs - F1 was the first casualty - and new-product development.We are now seeing the results in Australian showrooms, where the Corolla and Civic are now mid-pack in the small-car class and former pacesetters including the Mazda6, Honda Accord Euro and even the locally-made Camry are struggling against newer and better rivals.  They are fine for everyday transport, but not as impressive as they were just five years ago.Subaru has also cut costs and its latest styling work - particularly on the Liberty and Outback - reflects a desperate desire to win sales in the USA.  Contrast all of them against the Suzuki Kizashi, which comes from one of the few Japanese brands that held its nerve through the GFT. Suzuki has cut its production targets, and admits that extra Kizashi models are on the back-burner, but is going to do brilliantly well with the car.Toyota and Honda, in contrast, are relying on value-added deals to keep customers coming in Australia. They are recovering from the economic downturn but nowhere near as rapidly as some of their rivals  - particularly Hyundai.In Australia, many of our Japanese cars are now also actually built in Thailand. It's not a major drama, because the quality is much the same, but it shows how the battle to cut costs is influencing the Japanese makers. The Thai drive also shows that Japan Incorporated is now happy to produce bland transport modules instead of appealing cars, going for numbers first - in showrooms and on the balance sheet. It's a reasonable response to the GFC but is going to cause problems in coming years.Why? Because Australia is seeing so many classy European cars at more affordable prices - look at the Volkswagen Polo - and because Korean is coming up fast.  Hyundai is now doing a better job than Toyota at building Toyota-style cars, with adventurous styling, classy quality and great prices. It's latest, the i45 replacement for the dowdy Sonata, is really good on every front except its awful steering and lacklustre front suspension.The i45 is a Camry done better and, like the Kizashi, one of the stars of 2010. And it's not the end for Hyundai, which has all sorts of new models coming from the baby i20 to an overdue sporty car sometime in 2012.And that's whan the Japanese really could be in trouble. It's not because Hyundai has something new but because the Japanese wound their development programs back during the GFT and the results of that conservative risk management will not really be known until we see - or don't see - the work which should have been done over the past two years.Follow Paul Gover on Twitter!

A sporty wagon is likely to be first, tapping the style and shape of a Kizashi concept car first shown in Frankfurt three years ago, with a coupe also on the planning program.An all-wheel drive Kizashi is already in the works and approved for Australia and there could be a V6 engine to suit American buyers, although Suzuki is also believed to be examining the potential for a turbocharged four. There is also a petrol-electric hybrid close to a production sign-off, first for the USA in 2011 but also likely for Australia."We have an idea in mind for another body style for Kizashi," admits Masaaki Kato, Oceania marketing manager for Suzuki. "It is not something we can discuss yet, but we are working."Kato admits the global financial crisis has hit hard at the Kizashi program, cutting sales forecasts from 200,000-plus to around 80,000 cars in the first year and reducing the money available for future model developments. But Kato says the Kizashi family will definitely grow and there will be mechanical upgrades to a car which is crucial to the company's future."We will have more for Kizashi in a couple of years," he says, without providing any detail. But an on-sale date in 2012 means Suzuki has already completed the next stage of the program, as it takes around two years to go from a design sign-off to full-scale production, and that points to a station wagon as Kato admits the sales potential for a coupe is limited and would only give a short-term boost to Kizashi.Suzuki Australia is confident an all-wheel drive Kizashi - using similar components to its SX4 models - will do well in Australia but does not have a timetable. "When it's available we'll consider it. We're not ready and it hasn't been made available to us yet," says Tony Devers, general manager of Suzuki Australia. And the station wagon? "Not in the foreseeable future," he says.Suzuki's new partnership with Volkswagen Group, which has taken a minority stake in the Japanese company, is likely to open many doors on the technical front including access to a V6 engine. But no-one knows the detail yet on the tie-up or the potential for a V6."It's still early days. No-one really knows how it's going to work,"  says Devers. "A V6 was initially reviewed, but it's not available to us at the moment."It's a similar story for a diesel engine, even though Suzuki has big plans for the Kizashi in Europe. "They are studying but the diesel segment is quite small," says Devers.

The Japanese company's vital mid-sized sedan has not even hit the road yet, in Australia or the USA, but that has not stopped it from starring at the giant SEMA hot car show this week in Las Vegas. Suzuki delivered three pre-production prototypes to four tuning specialists in the USA and challenged them to create a set of look-at- me show cars to draw attention to the Kizashi.  There has been minimal go-faster work on the cars' four-cylinder engines, and the shape is still much the same as the final production car, but the Kizashi kids have already been a hit with Gen-X visitors to the Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Assocation's annual showcase. The SEMA show is now so important that a number of significant Australian companies, including Autobarn and radiator specialist PWR, are involved in the massive event.  The three tuner cars produced for SEMA come from Road Race Motorsport, which created a 'Platinum Edition' Kizashi; Delta Tech Engineering, with the Delta Kizashi; Westside Auto Group, which did its Kizashi Soleil; and Import Tuner magazine, which worked on the engine and suspension. At least one of the cars is likely to come to Australia during 2010 for motor show work, although there will be no Melbourne show in 2010 and Sydney will not run until September.  "As the biggest show in the world for these companies to show off their wares, SEMA was the logical choice for Suzuki to unveil the first of what will no doubt be many modified versions of the exciting new Suzuki mid-sized premium sedan," says Tony Devers, general manager of Suzuki Australia. "Kizashi has been eagerly awaited around the world since the first concept was shown at Frankfurt in 2007, particularly by modified car builders.  It is an exciting car, and one we are confident will attract huge attention." Suzuki Australia is not talking yet about prices or final performance and economy figures for the regulation Kizashi, but the tuner companies are happy to detail their SEMA work. Road Race Motorsport did a special body kit, including a custom grille and vented bonnet, then went to work with lowered suspension and bigger breaks.  The engine also breathes a little better thanks to a custom intake and exhaust system.  Delta Tech Engineering went right back to the basics, starting with a bare bodyshell and concentrated on a lighting package with LED and HID focus. But, despite the company's lighting expertise, it also tweaked the engine, added a body kit, then sit its car rolling on Koni suspension.  The Soleil from Westside features a custom two-tone paintjob, tweaked front and rear guards with a fabricated grille, finished with R-Worx alloy wheels. Fewer details are available on the Import Tuner car because it will be featured in the magazine, but it claims significant engine tweaking and suspension modifications aimed at its youthful audience. Suzuki says it is more than happy with the four cars, and what they say about the Kizashi.  "We are rapt that such a cutting edge design group has seen the potential in creating a radical profile for Kizashi," says Devers.  "We are living the dream that 'Something good is coming', which is the translation of the word Kizashi from Japanese into English."

The bold, break-through Kizashi has been shrunken and softened from the aggressive concept car that won fans at motor shows across the globe. The production version of the Kizashi is a 130mm narrower and sits on a 150mm shorter wheelbase than the original show car and the shape has also been softened to appeal to ultra-conservative customers in the US, its biggest target audience. The only production payback is an 80mm increase in height, to improve headroom, although this change has also taken some of the edge of out the Kizashi design. Official Suzuki pictures show a car which has changed a lot from the teaser cars, which began as a sporty hatchback and became a all-wheel- drive crossover before the close-to-production version last year. The reasoning is simple: Suzuki's first mid-size car must face up against the volume sellers like the heavyweight Toyota Camry, Honda Accord and Mazda6 in the sub-$30,000 class and so size is critical. Particularly in the US. The Kizashi and Camry share the same width and height but the Suzuki is 165mm shorter overall and it has a 75mm shorter wheelbase than the popular Toyota. Suzuki Australia general manager, Tony Devers, says the car does look smaller visually but it still has a large cabin. ``It actually looks good in the metal and a lot more aggressive in the flesh than the photos,'' he says. The car's full specifications are being saved for the Frankfurt Motor Show but Suzuki has said it will come with an all-alloy 2.4-litre four cylinder in both front and all-wheel drive. The four-cylinder is shared with the Grand Vitara and will be mated to a six-speed manual gearbox or continuously variable transmission with paddle shifters. A V6 all-wheel drive and turbo-diesel are also expected. Apart from the four and V6 Suzuki is also developing a hybrid version. Visually, Suzuki says the car is a combination of both Japanese and European design. The front retains the concept's deep grille but is softer and the slim- line eyebrow headlights have given way to larger headlights and conventional foglights. However, the short boot, short overhangs and sweeping roofline remain faithful to the concept. The Kizashi will hit local Suzuki showrooms in the second quarter of next year. Much of the car's development work was done in Europe with final testing at the famous Nurburgring in Germany. The Kizashi has a rigid light-weight steel body while both the front and multi-link rear suspension make extensive use of light-weight aluminium to ensure nimble handling. Inside the cabin follows Suzuki's current family theme with white and red gauges and the use of alloy-look highlights. Equipment includes a premium Rockford Fosgate sound system, push- button start, and iPod and Bluetooth connectivity. Safety equipment runs to eight airbags, electronic stability control and dynamic control, anti-skid brakes, projector beam headlamps and tyre pressure monitoring. The Kizashi will be built at a new plant in Sagara, Japan.  

Suzuki Australia has confirmed its mid-size Kizashi sedan will arrive in the second quarter of next year, pitched right into the stagnant mid-size segment. However, Suzuki Australia general manager, Tony Devers, has high hopes for the mid-sizer, which will be pitched directly at the Mazda6 and Honda Euro. "It's a driver's car and we've benchmarked the Mazda6 and Honda Accord Euro," he says. A Kizashi pre-production car is due to arrive within weeks to start the local homologation process. Devers says when production models become available he also plans to clinic the car among focus groups to see how it goes in front of potential Australian buyers. "This is the biggest passenger car that we've made," he says. "There's a lot riding on it." The Kizashi will be launched with an entry 2.4-litre front wheel drive version should be around $30,000 with a larger capacity V6 of more than 3.0-litre arriving later. The V6 may also get all-wheel drive. Ahead of the Kizashi is the new facelifted SX4, which will arrive early next year. "We've dropped the ball on the SX4," Devers says. So far this year Suzuki has sold just 1337 SX4s, down almost 50 per cent over the same period last year. Devers says the changeover to the new car is to blame. "We lost about three months of production," he says. "We definitely dropped the ball with that car." The facelifted SX4 gets a more powerful 2.0-litre engine but also a 20 per cent fuel economy lift and more equipment. Devers wants to relaunch the car with more enthusiasm in the marketplace but admits that it goes up against some tough small car competition, like the Toyota Corolla and Mazda3. Suzuki plans to push the car's individual styling as well as its all-wheel drive capacity. "AWD represents about 70 per cent of SX4 sales," Devers says. "Well definitely push that more among potential buyers." The Grand Vitara and Swift remain Suzuki's big cash-cows. Grand Vitara sales are up 12 per cent this year thanks to the addition of the 2.4-litre three-door and the Swift is weathering the overall downturn well, with sales down 14 per cent year to date. Further out a new-generation Swift and Swift Sport are due in 2011 and Suzuki wants to launch a bigger off-roader above the Grand Vitara around 2012. Devers says Suzuki's retention rate is lifting as the brand reputation grows thanks to the success of the newer entrants like the Swift. Four years ago Suzuki had a buyer retention rate of just 22 per cent. This has grown to around 60 per cent today.