Suzuki is sick of safety goalposts “constantly moving”  

The 2025 Suzuki Fronx will likely be without an all-important five-star ANCAP safety rating when it lands in showrooms this September.  

But regardless of what score it ends up with, Suzuki Australia’s long-time boss Michael Pachota is confident in the car’s credentials, saying the Fronx is “absolutely” a safe vehicle. 

ANCAP is Australia’s leading independent vehicle safety body that crash tests new vehicles, evaluates their safety tech then ranks their safety accordingly, but it’s also been known to ruffle feathers, often publicly grilling car brands for not including certain active safety features. 

And that’s been a sore spot for Suzuki in the past. 

“The goal posts are constantly moving,” Pachota said when asked about ANCAP safety ratings and how the Fronx would fare. 

“Our previous Swift was a five-star car. ANCAP said we could tell consumers, ‘That’s a five-star car’, then we bring out a safer car, they buy it, crash it, and it gets a one star [rating].” 

The latest Suzuki Swift was given a controversial one-star safety rating by ANCAP in December, having scored just 47 per cent for its adult occupant protection, 59 per cent for child occupant protection, a decent 76 per cent for vulnerable road user protection and 54 per cent for its safety assists. 

Pachota questioned whether it was an issue with the testing criteria rather than the car. 

“So does that mean that every single car that got a five-star safety rating, let's say five years ago or six years ago – most of the Australian car park mind you – are now unsafe?”  

The new Fronx is a light SUV roughly the size of a Toyota Yaris Cross or Mazda CX-3 and comes in just one high-specification model grade fitted with all the fruit – including plenty of safety features. 

It gets a front facing monocular camera and radar to detect objects day or night, enabling autonomous emergency braking and adaptive cruise control. It also features active lane keep assist and can accelerate, brake and steer semi-autonomously. 

Six airbags, a 360-degree surround view camera, traffic sign recognition and rear cross traffic alert are also part of the package. 

Yet for all the safety equipment, it only scored a four-star rating in recent Japanese NCAP testing, which has different testing criteria to ANCAP and Euro NCAP. 

“We’ve just had the car assessed in Japan and it received a four-star safety rating in Japan,” Pachota said. 

“We have the exact same product in Australia, so it’s to be determined what the [ANCAP] rating will be in Australia. 

“I understand we should always look after safety and have technology that prevents us from having accidents and being impacted by that, but how relative is that ANCAP rating [today], then, versus what you're getting in products moving forward?” 

Suzuki’s local chief was clearly frustrated with the safety scores handed down by the NCAP groups and suggested that if a vehicle passed Australian Design Rules (ADRs), it should be fit for purpose. 

“Put it this way, Australian design rules are known as some of the strictest in the world. And part of their assessment is safety, because the car can be safe enough to be on Australian roads.  

“They (the Department of Transport) don’t go to ANCAP and source their details. They just have their own requirements. 

“And every car that’s on Australian roads that gets brought in by a distributor must meet ADR requirements, which means it's safe.  

“So if ADRs say it’s safe, then the car's safe. I agree with them – it meets the regulations. That’s it.” 

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