Background
Lots of people mourn the passing of the Land Rover Defender as an off-road Titan. Solid live axles are better on loose terrain than modern independently sprung vehicles like the Evoke. If only there was a compact off-roader with traditional axles that you could buy new. Until 2020 there was, but then Suzuki stopped production of the wonderful Jimny. But why is it so compact?
The Japanese capital is one of the most densely populated areas of land on the planet so the Japanese authorities, in characteristically pragmatic style, tax vehicles based very much on how much room they take up. And right at the bottom of the tax heap is the kei class. And it’s this classification that spawned the original Suzuki Jimny way back in 1970.
The kei-car category was created by the Japanese government in 1949, and nearly all kei cars are designed and built in Japan, but a version of the French-made Smart was briefly imported and officially classified as a kei car, and since then the Caterham Seven 160 has also received kei classification.
The history of Suzuki four-wheel drive cars began in the latter half of the 1960s, when Suzuki bought a Steyr-Puch Haflinger, (think Austrian four-wheel-drive Mini Moke) to study with the intent of building a kei class off-road vehicle. Then in 1968 Suzuki bought the bankrupt Japanese automaker Hope Motor Company, which had introduced a small off-road vehicle called the Hope Star ON360.
The tiny Hope company had been unable to enter series production and only about 45 were made. The first Suzuki-branded four-wheel drive, the LJ10 (Light Jeep 10), was introduced in 1970. The LJ10 had a 359-cc, air-cooled, two-stroke, in-line two-cylinder engine. The liquid-cooled LJ20 was introduced in 1972 with the cooling changed due to newly enacted emission regulations, and it gained 3bhp. In 1975, Suzuki complemented the LJ20 with the LJ50, which had a larger 539-cc, two-stroke, in-line three-cylinder engine and bigger differentials. This was originally targeted at the Australian market, but more exports soon followed.
The Jimny8/LJ80 was an updated version of the LJ50 with an 800-cc, four-stroke, in-line four-cylinder engine, followed by the Jimny 1000/SJ410 and Jimny 1300/SJ413. An updated version of the SJ413 became known as the Samurai and was the first Suzuki officially marketed in the US. The series from SJ410 to SJ413 was known as the Sierra in Australia, and remained the Jimny in some markets.
The new Jimny was released in 1998, and used the G13BB EFI engine, but this was replaced by the M13AA EFI engine in 2001 and the M13AA VVT engine in 2005, in conjunction with a minor interior redesign.
For road use the Jimny defaults to two wheel drive, with just the rear wheels being driven. But if you need to cross a muddy field you can engage the front axle as well for full 4x4 action mode. There is no centre differential unit. This has a positive effect that at least two wheels, where each wheel is on a different axle, have to lose traction in order for the vehicle to lose drive when in 4x4 mode. The downside is that 4x4 mode shouldn’t be used on any surface which isn’t slippery, especially if having to steer, although for road use it really isn’t necessary anyway.
The Jimny also has a manually user selectable low ratio setting. The overall transmission gearing ratio is halved when the vehicle is in low range mode, which has the effect of the vehicle moving approximately twice as slowly but with double the torque at the wheels in any transmission gear, much like a traditional classic Land Rover.
Jimnys are very popular vehicles the world over but Suzuki stopped selling them in the UK in 2020. Despite the car’s being Euro 6 compliant their relatively high emissions became a problem for the company, which has to present an average emissions figure taken across all its products to the authorities. The Jimny’s relatively high figure made it uneconomic for Suzuki to continue selling the car in the UK, leaving fans of the fabulous little 4x4 unable to replace aging models.
