It was an early model, yeah. Maybe the same one used for their Car of the Year evaluation, which had similar complaints. After these two experiences, though, MT went on to become one of the Kizashi’s biggest fans. I read through the long-term tester notes (very brief for the most part) and they more or less gushed over the handling and value the Kizashi brought.
Suzuki doesn’t strike me as being similar to Toyota or Honda/Acura, who are very entrenched in the US. I don’t doubt the lost in translation bit you mentioned. What I meant by the Toyota/Honda comparison is that they design and produce cars in the US, for the US (and elsewhere). Suzuki strikes me as being very aloof to the American market and they’re fine with that lol (and look where that got them). They probably didn’t give two turds over sharing all the data and technical info and whatnot with their American branch.
I don’t know if the GM platform idea is too far off, because the Kizashi was in conceptual development since the mid-2000s. They had Kizashi concepts in 2007, years before the full car was released, and those don’t happen overnight. Meanwhile, GM and Suzuki began to split in 2006, if I’m correctly understanding what I read. Cars in general take several years to develop before we even see anything, which I’m sure you know. GM still built the XL7 until 2009, though.
Also, all three concepts had a 6-speed auto, and the later two concepts had 3.6L V6s (let’s all take a moment of silence for what could have been
). According to Wikipedia, it’s of the same exact displacement (3564cc) as the V6 in the XL7, which was a GM engine. The XL7 and Malibu both received 6-speed autos at the end of the 2000s; I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to think this same transmission was in the Kizashi concepts. Using the Epsilon platform makes sense to me since Suzuki wanted to use what were apparently GM powertrains, that may not have fit in the Delta II platform the Cruze used.
I could imagine the Kizashi originally starting out on the Epsilon platform very early on because it could house powertrains that Suzuki wanted to make the Kizashi seem more upscale. At some point Suzuki may have felt it wasn’t good enough, or ties with GM degraded too much and they figured using a proprietary platform would be better. Using as many GM parts as possible seems like it would have been the cost-effective solution here, at least starting out. That would have saved money to spend on making the car nicer overall (e.g. materials, features). I’m wondering if Suzuki went with the JATCO because 1: it was cheaper than the GM automatic, and 2: they lost access to using the automatic after the split was finalized in 2008 or so. The XL7 production by GM continuing until 2009 may have been part of some earlier contract made before the split, or just an exception that was allowed. This is all just speculation on my part.
But as you said, the truth may only be in Japan at this point, and we may never know. I wish the Kizashi was revered enough to get a small documentary or something, because its origins (and demise) are definitely more interesting than that of most cars.
Sorry for the jumbled reply - lots of going back and forth to other tabs on my phone.
Also apologies to OP for sort of hijacking the thread.