Suzuki’s new eco city car contender shapes up

2014-12-30 15:31:53

Suzuki has announced that its new city car – unveiled at the Geneva motor show earlier this year - will go on sale from February. Called the Celerio, Suzuki has not yet released pricing details for its new compact City car, but we would suggest that you should look to expect to pay around £7,500 for the Volkswagen Up! rival.

Suzuki promise that the Celerio will have class-leading interior space. A higher-than-average seating position means that drivers should have a more commanding view of the road. It also means that its boot capacity of 254-litres is also class-leading – three times bigger than a Skoda Citigo’s, for example.

Standard equipment on UK-spec cars still needs to be defined, but we can confidently expect it to include alloy wheels, traction control, six airbags, air conditioning, alloy wheels, DAB radio, USB connectivity and Bluetooth.

Initially, the Celerio will be offered with a 1.0-litre petrol engine. Thanks to emissions of just 99g/km of CO2 whilst still managing to return up to 65.7mpg, it will be free from road tax. Later on in the Summer, it will be joined by an even more efficient DaulJet petrol engine with emissions as low as 84g/km.

The new engine will be released alongside an automated manual transmission, dubbed ASG – or Auto Gear Shift. As the name suggests, the gearshift and clutch are automatically operated courtesy of an Intelligent Shift Control Actuator positioned at the top of the transmission. Suzuki promises the efficiency of a manual transmission with the effortless ease-of-use associated with an automatic, with no increase in CO2 emissions associated with a conventional torque converter equipped auto. The new gearbox will allow a low speed ‘creep’ facility without the accelerator being applied.

A number of trim levels will be offered. One thing is sure, Suzuki are intent on taking the fight to the Hyundai i10, Fiat Panda and Skoda.

Prices are expected to be slightly higher than the outgoing Suzuki Alto. It starts from £7,199 – and therefore, we are predicting that the new Celerio will cost from around £7,500.

This article was prepared by our car news team First4Auto.

Reported By

Andrew Merritt-Morling

Chief Editor