WE'VE always rather liked Suzuki here at Drive, writes William Scholes. I've a theory (OK, a hunch...) that car-makers who also build motorbikes tend to approach engineering in a more creative way than four-wheel-only counterparts.
BMW and Honda fall into this category, and so too do Suzuki. In the very best of these companies' products you get to experience the same sensations that riders of better motorcycles will be familiar with - of precision engineering, of manipulating mechanical components rather than activating microchips, of lightness and a lack of inertia, responsiveness and rev-hungry engines that feel unburstable.
Maybe this is why a Suzuki Swift, for example, is far better to drive than it really needs to be. Some of that essential 'Suzuki-ness' could be in danger of being diluted, however. A deal with Toyota which will see Suzuki develop small cars for the world's biggest car producer means, among other things, that we now get the Corolla estate and RAV4 SUV badged as Suzukis.
The Swace and Across may be fine cars, but neither is a Suzuki in the proper sense, though each fulfils an important role in giving the company access to hybrid technology.
If you want an authentic Suzuki, take a look at the S-Cross. It's the company's in-house family SUV offering, which has recently been heavily overhauled to help it go toe-to-toe with the latest Kia Sportage (which is brilliant), the perennially popular in Northern Ireland Hyundai Tucson, Nissan Qashqai and the oh-so-wide variety of other cars jostling for your family runaround cash.
The Suzuki isn't quite as physically large as some of those competitors - by way of one relevant comparison, the 430-litre boot trails the Sportage's 591 litres, the Qashqai 504 litres - but it's nonetheless still usefully practical, and you can seat three abreast in the back seat (in common with almost all rivals, there are two sets of Isofix mounts in the rear).
Where the S-Cross fights back is with the amount of kit on offer. There are two trim levels these days - Motion and Ultra - and both come with a panoply of safety kit (blind spot monitor, rear cross traffic alert, adaptive cruise control...) as well as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, heated front seats, keyless entry and dual-zone air conditioning.
Ultra gains a 360-degree view camera set-up, leather upholstery, sat-nav and an enormous sliding glass roof. Ultra also gets Suzuki's 'Allgrip' four-wheel-drive system.
The only engine on offer is the company's 1.4-litre 'Boosterjet' turbocharged petrol unit, with some mild hybrid assistance (13bhp and 39lb ft) courtesy of a new 48-volt set-up. Engine power is rated at 127bhp, with torque of 173lb ft; CO2 emissions are as low as 120g/km (and as high as 139g/km), with fuel consumption ranging between 53.2mpg and 46.3mpg on the WLTP combined cycle.
It's worth nothing that Suzukis actually manage to get very close to those official MPG figures, and I averaged high-40s with the four-wheel-drive, automatic gearbox-equipped S-Cross that I tried - in theory, the least frugal variant.
It may well be your correspondent's advancing years and diminishing faculties, but this latest S-Cross didn't feel quite as fizzy to drive as earlier iterations. Perhaps the automatic gearbox - a six-speed affair which goes about its business perfectly competently and unobtrusively - was to blame, though perhaps Suzuki has also tuned the car more for frugality than fun these days.
Still, it's a perfectly pleasant car to drive, and Suzuki's trademark light-on-its-toes character does present itself from time to time - if not as often as some might like.
The entry S-Cross Motion starts at a pound less than £25k, which is conspicuously good value. It's a steep near-£5k step from there to an Ultra model. That does get you a proper four-wheel-drive system, as well as leather trim and the appealing glass roof. But at £30k, the S-Cross doesn't make quite as much sense - those larger, more substantial offerings from Nissan, Seat and so on enter the equation more forcefully at this point. (Incidentally, at the time of publication, the automatic gearbox option for the S-Cross seems to have disappeared from the Suzuki website. Perhaps a further example of the supply issues afflicting the entire industry?).
It mightn't be the most effervescent Suzuki product on offer, but the S-Cross still has plenty to recommend it. It drives very nicely, is well kitted out and will be cheap to run - helped by its mild-hybrid system.
Suzuki has a strong reputation for reliability, too, and in Motion trim the S-Cross scores very highly for value for money.
If you must have your family SUV with four-wheel-drive, then this is probably the cheapest - though also highly capable - way of doing it. Though apart from that, the £30k Ultra model is harder to recommend. Keep it simple, however, and the S-Cross is worth a close look.
