New Suzuki Jimny to be pricier and more limited

The new Suzuki Jimny will be priced closer to $30,000 when it arrives in Australia in mid to late January next year.

Despite this, Suzuki Australia expects its first shipments from Japan to be sold out before they arrive, leading to waiting lists of up to six months.

The fourth-generation Suzuki Jimny – and the first full redesign in two decades – is already so popular that it broke the Japanese car-maker’s website when it was officially revealed in June.

Pre-orders in Australia, where the new Jimny was confirmed for release three weeks later, already number more than 125 and it’s likely the first batch of 400 or so will be spoken for prior to launch.

The Japanese factory that makes the Jimny has an annual capacity of 60,000 but worldwide demand is so strong that backorders stretched out for a year within a month of the new model’s reveal.

“There’s a huge amount of enquiry — it’s the car that broke the internet,” Suzuki Australia’s general manager for cars Michael Pachota told motoring.com.au.

“Supply numbers aren’t confirmed externally, but they will be tight globally so there’s a lot of pressure on all markets and our dealers are overwhelmed.

“We’ll get less than 500 for the first four months and I’m afraid my initial allocation will be exhausted by launch, so for some customers it could be a case of pre-order for July delivery.”

If Suzuki Australia can meet demand, the Mk4 Jimny could break the annual sales record of 1275 set by its predecessor in 1999 – the first full year after its release.

Since then Suzuki Jimny sales have hovered well below the 1000 mark per annum, except for 2015 when 1098 examples of the upgraded model with electronic stability control were sold.

The outgoing Jimny was officially discontinued in November 2017 and only around 100 were sold in Australia last year. To August this year just 92 have found homes and only a handful remain in dealer stock.

Suzuki dealers are now taking orders subject to final pricing and test drives, and the booming demand comes despite some providing indicative prices of up to $5000 more than before.

The discontinued Suzuki Jimny remains officially priced at $21,990 plus on-road costs for the manual, with automatic versions costing $2000 extra, but such is demand that some customers are paying much closer to $30,000.

Hence Pachota denied the new Jimny would be much more expensive than the model it replaces. Although he refused to reveal pricing at this stage, he confirmed both manual and automatic versions of the 2019 Jimny would remain under $30,000 (plus on-road costs).

It’s not yet known if Suzuki Australia will offer the new Jimny in just one or two model grades. If it’s the latter, the premium version would add equipment like LED headlights, climate control, sat-nav and 15-inch alloy wheels.

But it is confirmed Suzuki Australia will offer only the ‘wide-body’ version, powered by a new circa-75kW/130Nm 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine matched to five-speed manual and four-speed automatic transmissions with selectable four-wheel drive and low-range ratios.

All new Jimnys will bring a more rigid ladder frame, three-link live axles with all-coil suspension and four seats in a two-door body.

New safety advances include autonomous emergency braking (AEB), lane departure warning and traffic sign recognition, along with mod-cons like Bluetooth connectivity and cruise control.

However, the new Suzuki Jimny was recently awarded a three-star crash rating by Euro NCAP (the previous model was unrated) and it’s likely that sub-standard safety rating will be carried over by its Australian affiliate, ANCAP.

Despite this, Pachoita said “not a single” potential customer has raised concerns about the new Jimny’s safety credentials.

“In fact the people asking about it is journalists,” said the Suzuki Australia boss. “New Jimny’s impact rating is good for a specialist vehicle like this and won’t affect its success in market.”

Suzuki Australia will also release the facelifted Vitara small SUV in the first quarter of 2019.