‘S’ stands for a sportier new Suzuki Vitara

A SPORTY version of the Suzuki Vitara reached our shores early this year — and I’m rather glad it did.

This car is fun to drive and that mischievous element in cars seems in short supply at the moment. In sport mode the Vitara S fairly rips along.

Eight months after the UK launch of the new Vitara, Suzuki has introduced the S model in order to provide, as they put it, “a more sporting and dynamic character to the Vitara line-up”.

The Vitara, which has sold more than 5,000 units to date, gets a big boost from the S model in looks and performance.

Looks first, because that can count for much these days. The Vitara S is available in four colours, but the cosmic black metallic of the test car has to be one of the best. Other colours are bright red, cool white pearl and galactic grey metallic.



The S model is equipped with 17in gloss black alloy wheels, unique grille design, satin silver door mirrors, LED headlamps with red projector covers, rear upper spoiler and black side body mouldings.

For the interior the sporting theme continues to great effect with red interior stitching, red accents for the air conditioning vents and instruments and aluminium alloy pedals.

Then there is the power, which I found very attractive in this car. The new S model is the first Suzuki to be launched that utilises the new boosterjet technology engine which in the Vitara is a 140PS 1.4-litre direct injection turbocharged unit (DITC). This new engine has compact dimensions and offers 220Nm of torque available from just 1,500rpm through to 4,000rpm.

The boosterjet engine is a newly developed Suzuki unit that is characterised by improved fuel efficiency and driving pleasure that has been made possible by using a small displacement, high torque turbocharger. The 1.4-litre engine offers strong benefits in performance too, with a 0-62mph acceleration time of 10.2 seconds for both manual and automatic transmissions and a maximum speed, where permitted, of 124mph.

The Vitara is rated one of Europe’s safest cars according to independent crash testing results from Euro NCAP, and received the maximum five-star rating.

The Vitara was also the first compact SUV to earn five stars in the more rigorous 2015 Euro NCAP testing programme, which reinforces the exemplary level of safety of the model.

Vitara S factfile

The all-new Suzuki Vitara S is on sale now

• Priced at £20,899 for manual and £22,249 for automatic version

• New 1.4-litre engine — first application of Suzuki’s new boosterjet technology

• 140PS direct injection turbocharged engine offers a wide spread of torque available from just 1,500rpm

• Unique S model trim specification includes gloss black 17in alloy wheels, rear upper spoiler, satin silver door mirrors and red interior stitching

• CO2 emissions of 127g/km for manual transmission, just one gram higher for the optional automatic transmission model