Firestyle Magazine Issue 2 - Winter 2015 | Page 46

MOTORING Suzuki Celerio Suzuki has entered in to the very important city car market place with the all-new Celerio, writes Bob Hickman. Suzuki is well known as producers of excellent small cars, and the new Celerio will be available with 3 trim grades and priced very reasonably from £6999 for the entry SZ2 model, an additional £1,000 then goes on the next 2 trim grades badged SZ3, and SZ4. A small city car should feel just as safe as its larger siblings and the Celerio range come equipped with 6-air bags, and an ESP system. Low emissions of 92g/km CO2 and a low fuel consumption figures are claimed by the manufacturer. During my time with the Celerio I achieved 58mpg on over 300 miles using A, B roads and on the motorway, which I think is excellent. The Celerio really is an easy car to drive, it has outstanding manoeuvrability, a very tight turning circle of just 9.4 metres suggests that this will be a joy in and around town and also on multi-storey or tight car parks. Good all round visibility is enhanced by small pillars and the somewhat slightly higher seating and driving position. I like the fact that the front side doors open quite widely to enable less able people to access the vehicle with ease. 46 The Celerio is a diminutive package with quite angular design features, externally small but internally the designers have waved the magic wand and created ample space for 4 adults, luggage however will be at a premium, but lets not forget this is primarily a city car. There is ample room in the interior for 2 adults at the front, it is pleasing to note a huge amount of head and shoulder room, and you never feel claustrophobic in this particular vehicle. My test derivative for once was the basic entry level vehicle and it comes as quite a shock when you have to manually adjust wing mirrors, no blip per on a remote control, you have to put the key My particularly test derivative had a 998cc 3-cylinder engine allegedly putting out 68bhp but in a small light body, power to weight ratio is more important than outright performance. It complies with the new Euro C emissions and with the low CO figure, it is in excise band A and this equates to a nil excise duty. Top speed is given as 96mph and the 0 - 62 in a not too unexciting 13.5 seconds. in to the lock and then you have to remember to turn the key twice to the left and it will open all the doors for you. Also my test car was not equipped with air conditioning and I think this is one particular aspect that I may have been tempted to pay the extra £1,000 to go to the SZ3 that had air conditioning and air pollen filter. It is an extremely useful feature on a vehicle. That having been said I actually managed to live without remote control, and electric windows and surprisingly I managed without Blue Tooth and a Satellite Navigational System. Perhaps it is a case of the more features you have on the car the more you demand and then you suddenly realise in actual fact you don’t need a lot of the equipment now found on certain vehicles. From a driving perspective the 5-speed manual gearbox is notchy and positive, instrumentation was extremely minimal, just a speedometer, rev counter and fuel gauge, in addition there were a couple of buttons for the trip mileage and miles to the gallon. It proves that less is more and we do not really need a plethora of dials and switches to make our motoring any more enjoyable.