It wasn't me, honest. It wasn't any of us in fact. Heading into PH HQ on the A3, James was driving the blue Swift Sport in stop-start traffic. He had to come to a halt, but the Range Rover behind didn't. Range Rover bumper meets Swift boot and 'our' brand new car - it had 300 miles on it! - had to go back to Suzuki for a repair. Bother.
Three doors or five, it's still brilliant out here
Very generously, Suzuki UK did offer us the use of its five-door Sport test car while the three-door was being fixed. The pictures you see here are from when Autocar had the Swift for a comparison with the old Clio 200 Cup and Mugen Civic Type R as the last great
naturally aspirated hothatches
. Absolutely worthy of inclusion, I would say.
To all intents and purposes bar the obvious addition of doors, the white Swift is identical to the blue Swift - it even weighs the same 1,045kg - so it was no surprise to find it equally likeable. There's some really clever suspension tuning going on in these little Suzukis, with far greater compliance than you may credit a small Japanese car with. It's not at the expense of control either, the balance struck ideal for maintaining speed on a B-road; it absorbs the bumps and it isn't deflected, but neither is it lazily squishing out imperfections and undermining confidence. It's brilliant. The drive back from Lotus for the Evora Sport 410 drive down the B1077 is one I'll remember for a while in the Swift, its compact dimensions, eager nature and well sorted dynamics perfectly suited to the road.
Furthermore, and rather frustratingly, I grew to enjoy the convenience of five doors. See I disagree with Dan on five-door hot hatches, and feel that small ones in particular should be exclusively three-door (primarily on styling grounds), but the Swift might be wearing down my resistance. I still think it's sharper looking as a three-door, but not significantly worse with five, and the ability to just throw things on the back seat (with the intuitive keyless entry, a feature lacking from Dan's £70K Jag) is very useful. If I had enough friends to use those back seats I'm sure they would appreciate not clambering over a folded chair. And the five-door premium is only £500. Hmm...
Blue one is back; white comes recommended too
Soon enough the blue Swift was back in action, ready and raring to have a few more miles put on it. If I'm honest, it's the blue hot hatch on the PH Fleet that I'm rather more excited about driving at the moment. Yet I'm back in the Focus; ungrateful though it probably sounds, that wasn't exactly the plan. See James took the car recently to head back up home to Leicestershire, which meant we could swap cars when he was back in the office. Only trouble being he hasn't been in the office; I'll let him explain that - it's for a very good reason - but hurry up with my car JD! Last I heard it was approaching 1,000 miles, so maybe he's just making sure it's well run in.
When I do finally get the car back, it would be great to see how the Swift fares on track. Goodwood may not be the ideal location for something with 136hp, but then neither is mid-November the best time to be looking for track days! However it works out, hopefully next month I can report on some meaningful, enjoyable and incident free miles in the Swift. I'm really looking forward to it.
FACT SHEET
Car: Suzuki Swift Sport
Run by: Matt (well, it's meant to be...)
On fleet since: October 2016
Mileage: 937 (delivered on 300)
List price new: £14,399
Last month at a glance: Biffed by a Range Rover, back in business soon after