QOTD: Planning Your Great Escape?

If you haven’t noticed, disillusionment is spreading rapidly through the population, and it’s afflicting young people the most. It’s based around a particular inequality in America that people in overseas countries can’t quite fathom. To them, it’s hard to believe Far Western governments would deny their citizens such a freedom.

We’re talking about the Suzuki Jimny, of course — a wee little Japanese body-on-frame, live-axle, two-door utility vehicle that’s just now entering its fourth generation. It debuted in 1970. A week’s perusal of social media posts tells me a subset of youngins don’t want glitzy show cars and promises of autonomous driving and touchscreens as wide as a sumo wrestler’s midriff. They want a small, basic, considerably inexpensive utility vehicle with respectable ruggedness and capability, but they can’t have it.

No. Fair.

We’re not getting the Jimny here, and it’s foolish to think a car company that threw in the towel earlier this decade would attempt to place its foot back in the door.

Now, it’s quite possible that, even if the plucky, Defender-on-a-budget Jimny was available here, the groundswell of desire for this vehicle would prove an illusion — a phenomena confined to the auto journo bubble, not unlike the tired “brown manual wagon” trope. Thing is, I feel it, too. And unlike overpriced Eurowagon shooting brakes that tempt car lovers with style and precision and snobby Continental refinement, the Jimny, if priced right, might just satisfy a larger group of buyers than we realized.

The fourth-gen Jimny adds refinements its bare-bones predecessors lacked, but keeps its utilitarian, go-anywhere DNA. Without those solid axles, ladder frame, and two-speed transfer case, it would cease being authentic. Beneath its hood, at least in export markets, lies a 1.5-liter inline-four making a very modest 100 hp and 95 lb-ft, enough to push around a vehicle weighing roughly as much as an early 80s K-car. A five-speed manual sings its siren song to lustful putrists on the far side of the Pacific, but you can hand over shifting duties to a slushbox if you wish.

It all sounds great — not unlike a Japanese Lada Niva. Still, maybe we’ve grown too soft, too used to independent suspensions and four doors and acres of room and a digital assistant to boss around in an attempt to retain a few shreds of our dying masculinity. Too used to wanting — and getting — a vehicle large enough to feel invincible behind the wheel. The days of the American-market Suzuki Samurai, which was itself just a second-gen Jimny, are long past.

It’s too bad I have to suffer the torture of watching a third-gen Jimny, shod with diplomat plates, driving around my neighborhood. I’ve tailed it just out of curiosity and longing. Guess the fellow behind the wheel either made use of Canada’s 15-year import rule or received an exemption through his work visa.

So, if not the Jimny… what else? Subcompact crossovers offer four doors and limited room and so-so power for a price usually starting below $20k, but just barely. And you won’t get four-wheel motivation for that base MSRP. Is there room at the bottom for something completely different?

Would you be interested in a Jimny, and, if so, what’s the price ceiling you wouldn’t go above? Bonus question: If the Jimny’s not your bag, what minimalist small SUV, real or imagined, would you like to see in its place?

[Images: Suzuki UK]