Beauty and The Beast

I was bowled over by her sparkling bright eyes and enticing looks. It was love at first sight, nope i am still single and happily unmarried. I am talking about my new car. A brand new '08 edition Suzuki Swift VXi !!! Since Maruti launched Swift in 2005, i had decided that my first car would be a red Swift but slight changes in that plan and i bought the silver one to make my parents happy, who believe that the red one looks more like a Hot Wheels toy. Anyways it's still as swift and as sexy as the red one !!

Having driven my dad's M800 and later Alto (also an 800cc vehicle) before, the Swift is really a good upgrade. With its 1.3 Litre powerhouse and 87 horses working under the hood the Swift is the perfect combination of beauty and the beast. The driver's seat feels like an aircraft cockpit with umpteen number of dials, chimes, beeps, indicators and warning flashes on the dash instrument panel. It's got some innoavative safety stuff which were not present in Indian cars before like for instance the "sealbelts-not-on" warning, Doors ajar warning, pretensioners on front seatbelts, computer chip embedded key etc.

Now driving it is a breeze with the power steering which is extremely feather light, and the driving postion is very sporty with sunken seats and a sporty leather clad gear knob which shifts with precision and very small movement of the stick with a pleasant cluck-cluck-cluck sound (as in sports cars) while shifting. The power is amazing and i almost rocketed to a nearby treetop when i pedalled it like i used to in my dad's Alto. It's got quite luxurious interiors for a hatchback, with nice dual-tone seats, plain but efficient looking black dashboard and fabric lined doors with power windows on all four doors.

The cons i feel come in the form of less space in the rear. With very little rear legroom, u might hate grinding ur knees with the front seats. But it sure is quite wide enough to accomodate 3 adults in the back. Another problem is the low sunken seats, though it gives a sporty driving position, it hinders the view especially as the vehicle has got a bulging body from below the pillars and u get the feeling that u might nick the left side on tight turns. Suzuki could have added backlight in the power window buttons and its quite hard to find them in the night. Now that there are lot of Swifts On the road, nobody's gonna turn their heads for a second glance... but i can live with that, coz i now drive an international WRC car. B)