There's a new Suzuki Swift Sport in town! Although, you're not necessarily likely to be able to pick them out of a line-up with ease ...
Suzuki New Zealand has confirmed the updates that the little fizzy Swift Sport will inherit in 2020 for its mid-life refresh. The bulk of the changes are cosmetic, but there's a few other key details to look out for, too.
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The Sport now gets an optional painted black roof, and a pair of new colours in the form of Flame Orange [pictured above], Speedy Blue [pictured below], and Ablaze Red.
Its powerplant remains unchanged, although that's no big shame. The turbocharged 1.4-litre four and its 103kW/230Nm output is enough to have plenty of fun (100km/h comes up in 7.2 seconds), while also deliverying solid economy.
Change has instead occured in the Swift Sport's safety suite. Blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, rear parking sensors, and heated mirrors are all now standard features. That's on top of a package that already included adaptive cruise control (a coveted feature in this class).
Read more: An instant classic? We thrash the new Suzuki Swift Sport
The rear cross-traffic alert is arguably the most signfificant of these changes. It sends the driver an extra warning if they're reversing into traffic and neglect to see oncoming cars in the flow of traffic. Other updates include a new digital speedometer page in the multi-function digital cluster, which supplements the analogue speedo we've become accustomed to.
All of these tweaks come at a cost. The Swift Sport now starts at $29,990 (a $1,490 price hike) in its six-speed manual base variant. Those wanting an automatic will spend $30,990. The optional black roof, meanwhile, adds $490 to the respective price.
“Swift Sport owners are technically savvy individuals so the increased safety technology will have strong appeal to this audience,” says Suzuki New Zealand General Manager of Marketing, Gary Collins.
“The Swift Sport has an amazing reputation in our market, dominating recent small car awards and an Automobile Association People’s Choice winner. With the safety specification enhancement and exciting new colours, we anticipate the new model will attract even more demand.”
The revised Swift Sport has just landed in New Zealand, with models sporting the changes expected to be available for contactless test drives at dealerships nationwide.
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