Junkyard Find: 1991 Suzuki Swift
We haven’t given up on Suzuki yet, and so I decided to photograph this Geo Metro sibling when I found it in a Denver-area self-service yard.
This is the “big block” Swift with the four-cylinder. You still see the occasional Swift GT, which had a hotter engine, on the street these days, but regular Swifts were rare even back in the day.
It is still possible to buy a Swift aka Cultus of this generation in Pakistan today!
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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I had a 1989 Swift Gt, and while it was fun to toss about with 100hp and about 1700 curb weight and even had a factory Kenwood stereo (woo woo), they weren't the most reliable cars in the world. My seat back actually broke in 2 while doing 60mph on the freeway. I had to hang on for dear life since I no longer had a seatback. I took the car to the dealer where I bought it and requested a new seat since it was still under warranty (15,000miles). They told me that they didn't carry such things as seats and I'd have to wait on parts from Japan which could take 2-3 months.... Needless to say I traded my Suzuki in that day on a new car.
Used to see these things all over the place, now, not as much, though to be fair, most of what I see are the 1990's generation, this one and the more jellybean models that came after it. And we didn't get the Swift until later, like 1988 if I recall. It was simply the Chevy Sprint when these first appeared here. It was that first generation Sprint that I liked and about 2 years or so ago, spotted a blue 5 door parked on the street not too far from where I live that still looked to be drivable. At the time, it was parked next to a rather beat looking first gen Subaru Brat and down the street was a 72-74 Chevy LUV truck in that weird yellow green they had that also looked to be in running condition. Up until a year ago or so, someone nearby my apartment building had a white Metro convertible. Haven't seen it in about a year but it may well be still kicking around but who knows.