Unsung heroes: Suzuki Jimny

It has been quite some time since I wrote anything for this blog due to other things going on - I have plenty of new posts drafted in my head but just haven't had the time to write them down. Today the unsung heroes series makes its overdue return with an especially unusual and largely overlooked choice. Here is a car that wasn't even remotely advanced when it first appeared, yet has now been produced for two whole decades with no major changes. In this modern world of fickle consumers demanding new models every few years, that is really quite a remarkable achievement but has gone virtually unnoticed and totally uncelebrated. I'm talking about the Suzuki Jimny - many of you have almost certainly forgotten this ever existed so it may amaze you that at the time of writing UK customers can still buy a brand new one in basically the same form as the 1997 original!

The Jimny was nothing special back in 1997
(By Mytho88 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

BL's alternative reality - part 3

Here is the third and final part of my alternative reality that could have seen British Leyland become the pride of Britain with a popular, desirable and well-built range of cars and a world-renowned image, far from the reality of a long-extinct but still tarnished brand and its infamous lineup of failed products. Part 2 took us through the 1980s as the group consolidated the reputation established in the previous decade, so here we take up the story from the 1990s through to the present day with British Leyland still very much alive and well as a dominant force in the global motor industry. Sadly I have no Photoshop skills, otherwise I would create renderings of these cars to illustrate this article as I can picture them in my mind, but read on anyway to see how I envision BL looking today.

BL's alternative reality - part 2

Into the eighties...

This piece is another 'might have been' scenario concerning the British motor industry, which follows on from one published back in February and is best read in conjunction with it for the background to what happens here. That article proposed an alternative 1970s British Leyland range based around the Maxi and Allegro, so this one discusses what might have happened when the group moved into the 1980s as a successful and market-leading British-run company, a far cry from the tattered and troubled reality.

British Leyland, a world-famous brand entering the eighties in excellent shape