PERFORMANCE FOR THE PEOPLE!
"The car is incredibly well sorted. You can’t help but think that
for fifteen grand, its handling competence must be accidental."
You should care about the Suzuki SX4 Sport. Especially if your budget is around $15,000 and you want the vehicle dynamics that you just can’t have without spending another five grand. Starting at $14,770, the SX4 Sport could well be the cheapest car with a sporting bone in its body.
And it’s got more than just a sporting bone, too. Right off the showroom floor you get 17-inch aluminum wheels and 50-series rubber. It sits about half an inch lower than the SX4 Crossover, and it’s got shocks by KYB.
As cool as the parts list might be, it’s the way the combination of parts make the SX4 drive that’s impressive. We’ll admit that it is to our utter astonishment that the car is incredibly well sorted. You can’t help but think that for fifteen grand, its handling competence must be accidental. The steering is very communicative, with feedback that belies the car’s price tag (and for that matter, bests anything in this price range).
It’s easy to place the SX4 in corners, and lean on the suspension through the remainder of the bend. The car is sprung very tightly – like something you’d expect to find on a European version that will never come stateside. It makes a sporting drive an engaging experience, though sometimes the torsion beam rear suspension becomes unsettled through bumpier corners. Maybe it’s here the front-wheel drive SX4 Sport could benefit from the all-wheel drive of its cousin, the SX4 Crossover. But hey, it’s fifteen grand. You get one or you get the other. Unless you’re behind the wheel of our C16 Project SX4 Rally Car, that is.
At 143 horsepower, the SX4 easily outpowers the competition, but we wouldn’t call it a rocket. The shift action is excellent though, and rowing through the gears to get the power you need coming out of a corner or trucking uphill is something to look forward to, minus the ensuing roar inside the cockpit.
An automatic transmission is optional for $1100, but what’s the point of getting the sport if you’re going to equip it with a slushbox and ruin all the fun anyway? All SX4 Sports have four-wheel disc brakes with ABS and EBD. On top of that, you get power everything and even a keyless entry system for your fifteen grand. Your stereo will even play MP3’s. There are two packages you can tack on – a Convenience pack for $500, which adds cruise control, a leather steering wheel with audio controls, automatic climate control and heated outside mirrors. A no-brainer for 500 bucks, if you ask us.
Provided you’ve already blown the $500 on the Convenience pack, you can opt to make a bigger financial jump, to the Touring pack, which adds a six-disc CD player, a subwoofer, fog lights, a rear spoiler, ESP and traction control for $1000. Not such a no-brainer here.
Either way though, the SX4 Sport is an unquestionable value, and it’s definitely the only way to buy a performance-geared compact car for less than $15,000.
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