Life

TAILORED SWIFT GIVEN NON-SLIP TREATMENT

After the crushing disappointment of the Vauxhall Mokka featured in last week's Drive, the stars aligned to provide an altogether more pleasurable experience in the diminutive form of a Suzuki Swift, writes William Scholes

Beyond having four wheels, the two cars are rivals in no meaningful way.

The Swift is a small, inexpensive car in the vein of something like a Ford Fiesta or Volkswagen Up.

It is a case study in how to intelligently and economically distil a deftness of engineering touch into a commendable, compact package.

By comparison with the agile Swift, the Mokka moves with the grace of a mahogany armoire, but without the polish.

Though it has few peers as an automotive instrument of torture, the job description of the larger and pricier Mokka includes going toe-to-toe with the Skoda Yeti - a task for which it is as well equipped as I am to play tennis against Roger Federer - and the other crossovers, most of which have 4x4 styling cues.

But where the Mokka tested last week was a front-wheel-drive family car that looked like it ought to have four-wheel-drive, the Swift featured today actually is a 4x4 which looks no different to its two-wheel-drive siblings.

Well, that's not quite true, though you would need to have Mastermind levels of expertise on the subjects of 'Suzuki' and 'the Swift' to spot the difference.

The modest visual transformation includes a 4x4 badge on the tailgate, some new trim on the bumpers - called, with quaint ambition, 'skid plates' in the brochure - and a slightly raised ride height.

Depending on your point of view, Suzuki may have missed a trick here. After all, people seem to like acres of plastic cladding and jacked-up suspension on their cars, even when they don't have four-wheel-drive capability.

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