Suzuki Splash Range Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: Suzuki Splash
Prices: £9,190-£11,080 – on the road INSURANCE GROUPS: 3-4
Emissions: 120-131g/km
Performance: [1.3DDiS] 0-60mph 13.9s / max speed 103mph
Fuel Consumption: [1.3DDiS] (urban) 51.4mpg / (extra urban) 70.6mpg / (combined) 62.8mpg
Safety: ABS, EBD, BA, ESP, six airbags, seatbelt pre-tensioners
Dimensions: length/width/heightmm 3730/1680/1590

SUZUKI MAKES A SPLASH

Our Rating: 7.4 / 10

Expecting another quirky Japanese micro-car from Suzuki? You’d better think again. The Splash has the European market firmly in its sights. Steve Walker reports…

Casting its Splash into the deep end of the mainstream European supermini MPV sector, Suzuki might appear to be heading for a fall but this isn’t another Japanese Kei car oddity. Developed and manufactured in Europe to European tastes, the Splash demands to be taken seriously.

Suzuki has a bit of form when it comes to tiny cars. Various guises of the Wagon R graced UK dealerships for the best part of a decade with their odd miniature ice cream van styling and the impish Alto soldiered through an innings of similar proportions. Of course, you could be forgiven for not noticing either. Both vehicles were direct products of the Japanese Kei car legislation that gives tax and insurance breaks to vehicles below a certain size with engines of less than 660cc in capacity. They went down very well in the home market but in Europe, their profile never rose much beyond that of leftfield curiosities. The Splash is different. It’s designed and built in Europe to European tastes and Suzuki is fiercely keen that we Europeans should ‘get it’ and then get it.

If the Suzuki Wagon R failed to appear on your radar, there’s still a chance that the Vauxhall Agila did. The Wagon R was rebadged as the Agila and sold by Vauxhall in the UK and it fared a little better in this form thanks largely to the greater exposure from the Luton firm’s extensive dealer network. A similar relationship exists with the Splash in that Suzuki’s factory in Esztergom, Hungary also builds the latest Vauxhall Agila. This time, however, greater efforts have been made to differentiate the two products.

Suzuki is offering a range of three engines with the Splash. All are mated to five-speed manual gearboxes but there’s the option of a four-speed automatic with the 1.2-litre petrol unit. Currently, things start off with a 68bhp 1.0-litre petrol, then there’s an 85bhp 1.2-litre option. Suzuki’s European focus with the Splash is underlined by the presence of a 1.3-litre diesel engine. It’s manufactured under licence from Fiat and it delivers 73bhp, courtesy of its advanced common-rail direct injection architecture.

The way the Splash drives will be crucial to its prospects and Suzuki’s design team were under no illusions about this during development. The European market that the Splash has been created to crack wants a more cultured and responsive driving experience than cheap and cheerful Kei cars usually serve up. To this end, the Splash development programme took in tens of thousands of miles on Europe’s toughest roads. The PR blurb says they visited southern Spain for the dirt tracks, Germany for the autobahns and England for the cobbled streets. You might think that in the post Dickensian era, cobblestones might not be a particularly common driving surface in the UK but once the maverick utilities companies have done their bit, roads that feel like they’re cobbled are commonplace on these shores.

A diminutive five-door supermini-MPV in the mould of Renault’s Modus and Peugeot’s 1007, the Splash was the fourth model to be created under Suzuki’s "Way of Life!" design philosophy. Following on from the Swift, Grand Vitara and SX4, the aim was for it to excite customers with a youthful vibrancy that previous small Suzukis had sorely lacked. The car also needed to retain the spaciousness, high seating position and good all-round visibility that a supermini-MPV needs and that the Splash’s Wagon R predecessor actually did rather well. The Splash rides on a modified version of the Swift platform with a 30mm shorter wheelbase. At just 3.72m long, it’s compact and should prove well suited to the cut and thrust of our urban centres.

The exterior styling owes much to the Project Splash concept car that had the covers whipped from it at the 2006 Paris Motor Show. Once again, the European connection is strong with Suzuki sending a team of engineers to Europe on what sounds like the mother of all expense account jolly-ups as far back as 2004. Apparently, the ten-strong team "analysed European trends in cars, fashion, lifestyle and design" for six months. At least all the champagne an