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The Suzuki Swift has been in Sri Lanka for a while, becoming a common site on our roads. Every so often you even see the slightly less common Swift Sport model (often in luminescent colors) zipping through traffic. The Swift is a good car, spacious, affordable, and gets you from A to B without much fuss. So, how do you make a good hatchback better? Load it up with a bunch of tech, marry the drive system with an electric motor, take some styling notes off the Citroen DS3 and just maybe, you might end up with something better.
A quick thanks to the folks over at Millennium Motors for letting us get behind the wheel, so, for the first time in Sri Lanka, introducing the 2017 Suzuki Swift Hybrid RS! The RS model isn’t a sports variant, more like a sportier looking version of the standard. We drove the 2017 2WD 1.2L Hybrid version (note that there’s a 4WD version as well). Note that this car is from Japan, and positions itself above the Suzuki Baleno. I think the idea here was that the Baleno was the sensible offering, and the new Swift was the more premium one.
The Exterior
The new Swift’s shape is much like the older one, which I don’t by any means count as a negative, and that was basically Suzuki’s plan—improving on what already works, not completely redesigning their most popular car. Having said this, the design team has dropped the styling guide that had been part of the Swift since 2004, and taken notes from other hot hatchbacks, mainly the Citroen DS3 (at least in my opinion). They’ve modernized the entire thing, with smaller, more angular headlights with host Adaptive Xenon headlamps and LED daytime runners and a new grille. The new grille features a hexagonal/honeycomb shape design and is wider than before, resulting in the lower grille becoming much slimmer, and providing a better flow between the hood, the headlights and the fog lamps.