Road Test: Suzuki Celerio 1.0 GL

Suzuki Celerio 1.0 GL Road Test South Africa

The Suzuki Celerio is yet another small car Suzuki has on its hands for under R150 000. Three models covered by R20 000 all promising to do much the same thing. So which one is best?

The Suzuki Celerio is the successor to the Alto and what an upgrade it is in every department. Bigger, more fuel efficient, better looking and comes loaded with more equipment. But the Celerio is so good that it manages to place some of Suzuki’s other models in danger.

Small cars are Suzuki’s strength. While the Japanese brand still dabbles in the SUV market (no longer Sedan since the axing of Kizashi) its expertise are best experienced in cars like the Celerio and Swift. The Celerio enforces these attributes; sturdy build quality, nicely weighted shifts, well-judged interior layout and raspy engines. Styling is good too with the bluff nose (some resemblance to Sandero), colour coding and slanting roofline.

We’re not over keen on Suzuki’s latest trend of notching up the ride height (165mm) with some weirdly sized narrow rubber. Not only does it spoil the looks but some of the sharpness that’s so defining in Suzuki products is compromised. The steering becomes a little vague around centre and it manages to take some of the polish off an excellent chassis waiting to be enjoyed. This is largely a circumstance of being built in India.

No turbo charging here with the debut of Suzuki’s 1.0-litre, 3-cylinder engine.  Raspy and a little bit gruff, the engine moves the Celerio along with aplomb. Honestly the Suzuki Celerio needn’t be ashamed of not having a turbo under its small bonnet and it performs as well as the Suzuki Swift 1.2-litre. How’s that possible? Well the Celerio is nearly 200kg lighter than the Splash and 125kg less than the Swift At 4.7l/100km and 110g/km it’s also the most frugal and cleanest of the bunch – certainly as good as any of its rival turbo crew.

Inside the Suzuki Celerio has more brilliance to offer; a boot larger than the Swift’s (the same as the Splash) and headroom and rear legroom that seems improbable from the outside. In the higher GL model there are volume controls positioned on the steering wheel, Bluetooth pairing and USB. All models come with dual airbags and ABS. And what a relief, there’s no funny cloth material or weirdly coloured dash panels.

What we have here is the leading small car on sale in South Africa. We have yet to drive the auto but gut feel and past knowledge say stick with the manual. There’s not a lot to gain by stretching the budget as far as the Swift 1.2-litre.

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