Junkyard Find: 2005 Suzuki Reno SWT
Would you consider a special-edition version of the Daewoo Nubira’s successor to be worthy of inclusion in this series, even as I walk by 99 out of 100 junked BMW E30s? Hey, if I’m willing to photograph every Mitsubishi Lancer OZ Rally and Geo Storm GSi that I find in the junkyard, then of course a genuine, numbers-matching Suzuki Reno SWT makes the cut!
Daewoo, the South Korean outpost of the General Motors Empire, failed in ignominious fashion when attempting to sell the Lanos, Nubira, and Leganza in North America during the 1999-2002 period. Still, the Leganza lived on— briefly— as the Suzuki Verona, and the hatchback version of the Nubira’s successor (the Daewoo Lacetti, of Top Gear Reasonably Priced Car fame) also got Suzuki badges: the Reno.
Did you know that Suzuki offered a “Suzuki Works Techno” option package for the Reno for the 2005 model year? I didn’t, until I found this car in a self-service yard near the California state capitol. The SWT packages started out in Japan, then spread across the Pacific to include the Reno and Aerio.
You didn’t get anything to make the Reno faster when you spent the 500 bucks to get the SWT, but you did get Sunburst Orange paint, faux-carbon-fiber accents, a spoiler, and these exquisitely mid-2000s tape graphics.
There’s plenty of “carbon-fiber-styled” stuff to be found here, which should have appealed to fans of the early Fast and Furious movies.
You could get the Reno with a manual transmission, but few buyers did so.
126 horsepower here. So, what we have here is a cheap commuter appliance that looked more interesting than the ordinary Accents and Aveos in the office-park lot.
Suzuki gave up on selling cars in the United States after 2012, but still makes plenty of yen by offering the best-selling car in Japan.
For links to 2000+ more Junkyard Finds, head over to the Junkyard Home of the Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand™.
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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This was the ultimate subprime vehicle.
I would love to know how long this sat on the lot before being sold, and how much of a discount was offered.