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rounder. Add the words ALLGRIP and it becomes an exceptionally capable supermini. Swift pricing starts at £19,699 for the lead-in model with an impressive array of standard equipment including adaptive cruise, keyless entry and start, navigation, auto-lights with high beam assist, heated front seats, rear camera and parking sensors, Bluetooth, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, air conditioning and tyre pressure monitoring. In manual form there is a 5-speed gearbox, with a
CVT for the automatic option. There’s just one power unit, a 1.2-litre, 3-cylinder petrol that just sneaks under the 100g/km Co2 emissions on the lead-in car. The Swift isn’t going to set the performance world alight, but it feels much peppier than its 82PS would suggest. At times you do have to offer encouragement, but the manual gearbox is smooth and slick with a nice short throw on the gear lever. Once on the move it keeps up with modern traffic on faster roads and proves good fun on smaller cross-country routes, especially if you
have the ALLGRIP model as tested here. Suzuki launched their first four-wheel-drive vehicle over
50 years ago and their off-road abilities are well respected. The automatic system in the Swift uses a viscous coupling so that if the front wheels start to lose traction, power is distributed to the rear wheels to maintain progress. There are no buttons, levers or other paraphernalia, it’s all very simple. The Swift has always been a surefooted drive, in this form it’s even better, and in the winter makes perfect sense. No automatic option for the AWD but with the 5-speed manual £22,049 seems especially good value for money. Style is always subjective, everyone’s different, but I cannot imagine anyone finding objection to the Swift. It’s smart, feels nicely bolted together and thanks to the thrum of the 3-cylinder engine makes for a fun and engaging drive. The interior is smartly done with decent space and lots of places for in-car oddments. Suzuki has a knack of hitting the mark in terms of giving
buyers practical, sensible cars that still have a dash of style. The Swift perfectly embodies this ethos.
Hyundai Ioniq 9 – space, style and quality I
have commented before in these pages that the designers of EVs seem to be competing to produce the most striking, brash and ‘out there’ designs possible to make their cars stand out in an ever-increasing automotive EV crowd. A good case in point is the Hyundai Ioniq 9, a genuinely large machine that feels particularly spacious, not necessarily a given with large cars, utilising the interior space very effectively. From a style point of view, which is obviously
subjective, the feedback on my Ioniq 9 test model was not entirely positive. The feedback changed for the interior though, where without exception everyone thought it not only spacious and comfortable but extremely tactile, premium and stylish. Externally the Ioniq 9’s looks are much improved with lighter paint finishes and the same can be said of the interior too. Light interiors always tend to look classier but very effectively make an interior feel light and airy too. The range starts from £64,995 with three trim
levels, the top-line version costing £78,595. All bar one version offers seven seats with a six-seat model providing two individual chairs in the middle seating row. Standard fare across all models includes three zone climate control, smart cruise, power tailgate, wireless phone charging, powered, heated and folding door mirrors, heated front seats and steering wheel, power front seats, automatic flush door handles plus auto lights, wipers and dimming mirrors. My test model was the Ultimate version (£73,496) and adds such niceties as a panoramic glass sunroof, heated front and middle row seats plus ventilated front ones too. A head up display (very useful and easy to read),
a superb Bose sound system and rear privacy glass. Finished in Biophillic Blue Pearl with a light interior the moment you opened the door it genuinely looked a million dollars in terms of style, feel and quality. Ultimate models upwards add a heat pump to assist
range by keeping the battery at an optimal temperature and makes the heating and ventilation system much more efficient. All Ioniq 9 models have a 110-kwh battery and the lead-in version with rear-wheel-drive develops 218PS, the top-line version develops 427PS. My 307PS all-wheel-drive test version, offers a potential range of 372 miles, although in real-world-driving I’d suggest a more realistic range would be in the order of 300 miles. That’s still a very useable range. Considering the size of the Ioniq 9 the handling is
surprisingly good, although you aren’t going to be powering along twisting cross country routes. Comfort is the key and you couldn’t really want for anything such is the level of standard equipment. If you like the look, want a genuinely impressive interior, and let’s face it you spend most of your time inside a car, then the Ioniq 9 is an example of where a manufacturer still puts quality above cost.
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