It’s not very often that I am willing to get up at 6:00am to go for a drive, in fact it’s not often that I am willing to get up at 6:00am for anything. But Suzuki’s invitation to central and northern Australia to drive the new Grand Vitara was an offer worth waking up early for.
Our journey took three days and involved everything from private jets at a cost of $4000 an hour to helicopters, a camel (more on the dromedary later) and of course, driving Suzuki’s flagship model across hundreds of kilometres of desert and four-wheel drive tracks in the Northern Territory.
Day 1:
Whoever invented the snooze button on alarms was obviously an extreme optimist, ‘another 10 minutes won’t kill …’
Sure enough as I arrived at Suzuki headquarters near Brisbane airport, my fellow motoring journalists (all three of them) and Suzuki staff were all ready to roll.
Ten minutes later a taxicab arrived and rushed us to a private hanger on the outskirts of Brisbane airport. Secretly, I was hoping what ever plane Suzuki had acquired for the trip had at least two engines and that they weren’t the BMW emblem kind.
Thankfully Suzuki had full intentions of getting us to Ayers Rock/Ularu in one piece, which meant we had a Cessna Citation Bravo, the world’s most popular midsize business jet.
Despite the two Pratt & Whitney Canada PW530 engines strapped on for good measure, a headwind plagued us, which meant a two-and-a-half hour flight to Charleton, stop and refuel and then another two hour flight to Ayers Rock.
At a cost of $4000 an hour flying time plus $600 a day for each crew member, this wasn’t a cheap flight by any means. Eventually though, we arrived at Ayers Rock airstrip and headed for the Desert Gardens hotel.
Here we were greeted by a few other journalists from Australia and New Zealand, plus a large team of Suzuki engineers and designers and to our surprise, Mr Toshihiro (Ted) Suzuki, the son of the current Suzuki boss and a descendent of company founder Michio Suzuki.
Having met the local wildlife - everything from small lizards to big lizards and even a few Dingos - it was time to get serious.
Suzuki may be a relatively small brand in Australia, with only about two per cent market share, but in total, the Japanese manufacturer sold 2,405,000 units globally last year and in terms of volume, sits fourth in the Japanese rankings, behind Toyota, Honda and Nissan. Putting it ahead of the likes of Mitsubishi and Subaru.
The release of the third generation Grand Vitara marks 20 years of production for the popular SUV. Suzuki lays claim to the Vitara having invented the compact SUV segment, as it had no direct rivals back in 1988.
The biggest changes to the new model are by no means visible from the outside, design-wise, a new grille and wider fog lamps are about the most noticeable upgrades, as well as LED turn signal lamps.
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Great little car, fun off-road, lots of character.
No side airbags, can be a little cramped inside.
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