The Car & Driver hands-on impression of the Jimny from the other year is pretty damning as to why it wouldn’t cut it in the US these days. It’s a great off-roader, has tons of personality and charm, and looks awesome on the outside, but that’s literally it. On-road performance/comfort, overall chintzy cabin, fuel economy, a fairly high price for what it is, emissions, safety, and 0-60 MPH in ~12 seconds (not good for highways, as Kuro mentioned) means it’s absolutely unfit for the American auto market and what’s allowed to be on sale. And I’m saying this as someone who likes the Jimny. It’s just realistically not cut out for mainstream American sales. Maybe for park ranger duties, off-road courses, or zoo safari vehicles and the like, lol, but that’s it. It would have been fine a long time ago, I’ll admit.
https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a3 ... mny-drive/
I, too, hope Suzuki and Toyota actually put their heads together to develop something like what Kuro said, because so far it seems like they’re just rebadging each other’s vehicles and calling it a day. Kind of a waste of potential at this point. The Suzuki versions of Toyotas have been selling in dismal numbers; not sure about the Toyota versions of Suzukis, though. At least when Subaru and Toyota collaborate, there’s some shared engineering in the BRZ/FR-S/GT86 and slightly different looks. The upcoming Subaru Solterra, which from what I understand is Toyota-developed, at least will look (marginally) different (probably) than the Toyota bZ4X that was officially revealed in all its “glory” yesterday. The name is weird, but it stands for “beyond zero,” for anyone wondering, and more such vehicles will soon join it. The Suzuki Swace, meanwhile, is literally just a Toyota with a Suzuki badge. The Across, Suzuki’s version of the RAV4 PHEV (a solid vehicle, BTW), has a unique front fascia, and that’s it. I’m reading that it’s pretty expensive and the warranty isn’t as good as Toyota’s lol.