As a car person, one question I get asked a lot is, "What is the best car to buy?"

It sounds straightforward but it is actually very difficult to answer, because it all depends on your individual requirements.

But if all you need is something simple to drive around, and don't need lots of space, I guess I now have an answer to that question - the new Suzuki Swift.

What's great about the new Suzuki Swift?

First of all, there's the price tag. For a short period of time, the Swift was the cheapest new car you could buy in Singapore. It has since been undercut by a couple of electric vehicles (EVs), but it remains the third most affordable new car in the market.

Its price of $137,888 with COE (as of February 2025) is an absolutely steal in the current high COE climate. Add another $1,000 and you can get it with fancy two-tone paintwork.

But despite its budget price tag, the Swift comes well-equipped with driver assistance features such as adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning and lane keeping assist.

You also get keyless entry, an engine push start button, LED headlights, and wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, all things that make modern motoring convenient and stress-free.

For some reason it also comes with heated seats, which are nice to have in theory, but its usefulness in tropical Singapore is rather questionable.

Anything else?

If you're looking for a large touchscreen or fancy gizmos, you won't find it here.

But therein lies the beauty of the Swift. It offers most of the major conveniences you expect from cars today, without overloading you with complicated tech that you'll find in many new models these days.

Instead, you get a simple 9-inch touchscreen that incorporates the infotainment system, including a reverse camera and the aforementioned Apple CarPlay/Android Auto connectivity.

It also displays all the relevant information, such as your fuel consumption and energy usage, and in truth, that is really all you need.

The cabin is truly a hallmark of old school simplicity, with physical buttons aplenty. The switches for the climate control system are on the dashboard, as they should be, while buttons on the steering wheel toggle the volume and the driver assistance systems.

There is even an old-fashioned gear selector stick and manual handbrake lever in the centre, things you hardly come across these days in a world of EVs and their fancy automated systems.

The only other car I've driven recently with such a setup was the Volkswagen T-Cross, which feels like a car with a similar vibe to the Swift.

How does it drive?

For a small car that's not exactly powerful, the Swift feels extremely eager and lively when you get going. The 1.2-litre engine puts out a miniscule 82hp and 112Nm of torque, but at the same time, the car weighs in at a mere 945kg, which is a near miracle in today's era of heavy and bloated cars.

This means that the Swift is lively and entertaining to drive without requiring you to go fast, and the car is truly enjoyable even if you're just manoeuvring it around the carpark, with its light and responsive steering and sheer agility thanks to its compact dimensions.

It features a mild hybrid setup with a small 2.19kW electric motor that is meant to aid with fuel efficiency, and together with the car's light weight, the Swift is able to manage a claimed fuel consumption figure of 4.9 litres per 100km.

Even with enthusiastic driving, one should be able to manage at least 5 litres per 100km easily, such is the Swift's remarkable efficiency.

Does it have enough space though?

Being a small hatchback, one obviously has to manage expectations a bit, and not expect it to be able to accommodate full-size wrestlers in the back. But the latest Swift does fare somewhat better than its predecessors in terms of interior room.

Three average-sized adults can just about fit in the rear, with enough legroom to ensure that they all still have circulation in their legs after a long journey. The doors open pretty wide too, which means access is fairly easy and straightforward.

As for the boot, which has long been a weak point of previous generation Swifts, there is now a reasonable 265 litres of room of cargo capacity in the new car. It's still not huge by any means, but it is more than enough for your supermarket grocery runs.

So it is cheap and good then?

Very much so.

Its small size means it is easy to manoeuvre around the city, the small engine and mild hybrid drivetrain means it is tremendously frugal, it comes with enough modern amenities to make the ownership experience pleasant without getting needlessly complicated, and it somehow still manages to be fun to drive as well.

Again, if all you need is a small car to get you around daily, and you don't need to ferry large adults on a regular basis, then the new Suzuki Swift is an absolutely perfect choice.

benjamin.chia@asiaone.com

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