Back in 2016, Suzuki brand left the Malaysian market and transferred all their showrooms and service centres to Proton. In early 2020, we see the Suzuki brand return to Malaysia under a new distributor, Naza Eastern Motors Sdn Bhd. Under the new distributor, the 1st car that was launched is the Suzuki Swift Sport. Coming with a more powerful turbocharged engine and a brand new look, the Swift Sport is poised to be an interesting car to drive.
The new generation Swift Sport comes with a more modern and refined look, which is tidier around the edges compared to the previous generation car. Generally, the classic shape of the Swift Sport has been retained, especially the floating roof design. The Swift Sport also gets LED headlights and taillights in order to elevate the looks of the car. 
Being a sporty model of the Suzuki Swift family, the Swift Sport that I have here blends into the crowd easily. This is because the Swift Sport that was loaned to me was a white colour car, if you want your car to stand out even more, I’d suggest you to choose the iconic yellow colour when you purchase your car. Lastly, the Swift Sport comes with a sportier looking rear bumper that features a faux diffuser and dual exhaust tip to hint that this is a performance based vehicle. 
Since the Suzuki Swift Sport was launched back in 2017, the interior design does feel a little dated compared to some of the newer rivals. On the plus side, Suzuki did put in the effort to make the interior of the car feel as driver focused as possible. The overall fit and finish is good, but the plastics that were used around the cabin are the hard plastics, which is similar to some of the plastics used on more budget friendly cars. 
Sitting in the driver seat, I find that the seating position is spot on thanks to the semi bucket seats that were fitted with the Swift Sport. While I don’t find any trouble fitting in the seats, I still feel that the lower portion of the seats are a little too tight for me, which takes some time to get used to. I like the seating position in the Suzuki Swift Sport to the point where I changed my seating position in my own car to mimic it. 
In order to provide the driver with sufficient information, Suzuki has equipped the Swift Sport with an analogue instrument cluster that has a coloured LCD screen at the center. The screen allows the driver to see the engine performance, turbo boost, fuel consumption figure, and G meter according to the driver’s preference. At the center, there is a 7-inch touchscreen head unit that is hooked up to a 6 speaker setup. The sound system quality is moderate at best, but the head unit does come with Apple CarPlay. Sadly, Android Auto has been left out again. 
For the rear seats, it’s not the most comfortable place to be over long journeys. Rear passengers do get decent legroom and headroom, but the rear seat bench didn’t have any kind of support to keep rear passengers comfortable. As for boot space, you do get 265L of loading capacity while the rear seats can be folded down to further expand the size of the boot. 
Under the hood, the Swift Sport is powered by a 1.4L turbocharged 4 cylinder engine, and it’s mated to a 6-speed transmission. This engine has the ability to produce around 140bhp at 5,500rpm and 230Nm of torque from 2,500-3,500rpm. According to the official figure, the Swift Sport can accelerate from 0-100km/h in 8.1 seconds and hit a top speed of 205km/h. 
Looking at the performance figure, the Swift Sport’s engine is not any record breaking engine. Due to the lack of weight, the whole package made the Swift Sport a decent performer. At lower speeds, I noticed that the engine felt somehow sluggish and reluctant to move, especially in start stop traffic. Once the pace picked up, the engine felt lively and very eager to get a move on. I think this is due to the peak torque only kicks in at around 2,500rpm, which causes the lack of any grunt below that engine speed. During my time with the car, I’m surprised to find that the Swift Sport’s engine is very frugal, it returned an impressive 7.2L/100km of average fuel consumption reading.
In Malaysia, we only get the 6 speed automatic transmission version of the Swift Sport here. Of course, some buyers might want to get their hands on the manual version, but if Suzuki Malaysia were to make sure that they can appeal to a wider audience, automatic transmission is the only way to go. This transmission is tuned to match the Swift Sport engine in terms of performance. The gear shifts are smooth, and the transmission always ensures that it is in the right gear when necessary.
On the other hand, I sometimes noticed that the lock up clutch in the torque converter might suddenly engage when I did not fully depress the brake pedal, especially in very slow moving traffic. This creates a violent jerk that makes me think that someone has knocked into the back of the vehicle. If I were to own the Swift Sport, the 1st thing that I would upgrade is the exhaust system. The factory exhaust system is rather muted, and it sort of takes away some driving experience of the Swift Sport.
When it comes to ride and handling, the Swift Sport is a car that speaks confidence in this department. The Swift Sport is fitted with a sports tuned suspension, which makes the car stiffer than the regular Swifts. With the stiffer suspension, it allows the Swift Sport to greatly minimize the body roll when cornering, which encourages the driver to take corners at much higher speeds. Even though the suspension is stiff, it is not bumpy when going over uneven roads.
While the Swift Sport is considered lightweight by modern day vehicle standards, the steering wheel still weighs up nicely to provide feedback for the driver when taking corners. As for the brakes, the new Swift Sport is equipped with all round disc brakes just like the previous generation model. The braking performance is strong, and it’s also easy to modulate, which is something that was expected from a performance oriented vehicle.
Safety wise, the Swift Sport is equipped with the basic passive safety systems. These systems include 6 airbags, ABS with EBD, ESP, hill hold assist, and dual ISOFIX for the rear seats to keep the driver safe. I think Suzuki Malaysia left out the Advanced Driver Assistant System in order to keep the price of the Swift Sport competitive.
Back to the main question, is the Suzuki Swift Sport worth the RM139,900 asking price? It really depends on the perspective that you’re coming from. If practicality and creature comfort is at the top of your priority, You’re better off looking at other alternatives. On the other hand, if you’re a car enthusiast, I would say that it’s a good starting point for those who are looking for a performance based vehicle. Looking at this price point, there is no other brand new car that is as driver focus as the Swift Sport. Personally, I would keep the Swift Sport for occasional weekend drives, this is to prevent losing the sense of occasion when driving the car.
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