New Suzuki Jimny already blinged

It’s six months away from Australian showrooms but Japanese vehicle customisers are already working their magic on the fourth-generation Suzuki Jimny.

Revealed in June and then confirmed for Australian release in January next year, the 2019 Suzuki Jimny has only been on sale in its domestic market since last month.

But that hasn’t stopped at least two specialist Japanese auto workshop creating cool retro and hard-core off-road versions of the all-new small SUV.

Drawing on the Jimny’s classic boxy proportions and three generations of heritage dating back to 1970, Jimny Center Niigata has long been personalising Suzuki’s famous off-road workhorse, which has a cult following in Japan.

In fact, Jimny Center Niigata has attracted a backlog of orders for its products and services, including custom interior and exterior paintwork, and old-school cabin upholstery and cladding including real wood roof paneling.

In the case of the new Suzuki Jimny, the Japanese customiser has so far developed a grille with old-style Suzuki logo, and adapted retro-look wheels with whitewall tyres.

Meantime another Japanese aftermarket outfit, Liberty Walk, has created a jacked up and toughened up version of the new Suzuki Jimny, for which it is now taking orders ahead of first deliveries later this year.

Liberty Walk is best known for modifying performance cars since the early 1990s, but its first compact SUV – dubbed OEP222 or G-mini – takes plenty of inspiration from the Nagoya-based company’s larger LB-Works, based on the Mercedes-Benz G-Class.

Both models get a similarly aggressive front-end treatment, including a bulging carbon-fibre bonnet and huge wheel-arch flares wrapped around chunky off-road wheels and tyres.

Like the three generations before it, the Mk4 Suzuki Jimny will come with a rugged ladder-frame chassis with live axles at both ends, plus a dual-range transmission, making it one of the world’s only genuinely hard-core compact SUVs.

Australian versions of the pint-size, two-door, four-seat off-road wagon will be powered by a 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine matched with either five-speed manual or four-speed automatic transmissions.

Suzuki Australia has already received strong interest for the new model, so it will be interesting to see how far the new Suzuki Jimny diverges from the outgoing model’s $21,990 price tag.