The baby sized Suzuki Jimny JX sport ute has long gone unheralded as a much more capable off-roader than most people expect. Now DrivenNZ is reporting that a dealership in New Zealand is turning them into work trucks—or at least farm trucks—chopping off the backend and replacing it with a flatbed with fold-down sides.
The Jimny JX, America’s forbidden 4×4 fruit
In keeping with its utilitarian spec, the Jimny JX only comes with a 5-speed manual, steel wheels (which look pretty cool, actually), and no touchscreen infotainment screen. Power comes from Suzuki’s tiny 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine that’s good for about 100-hp and 96 lb-ft of torque. But it does keep the 4WD and a 4-low transfer case and light weight, making it an able scrambler over rocks, gullies, and Jeep tracks that would barely qualify as roads.
Truck or UTV?
These spartan two-person utes are not cheap at $37,990 NZ or just under $23,000 U.S. But they would compare favorably to, say, a Polaris Ranger XP 1000 UTV that starts at $16,899 with 82 horsepower. But unlike the Polaris, you could drive the Jimny JX on public roads. And that’s probably the target market for this Suzuki. As UTVs grow and grow in power and capability—and price, it makes sense that 4×4 vehicle makers (or at least their dealers) would consider stripping down their features to compete in that market.
Unfortunately, buyers here in the U.S. will ever see one. Suzuki left the U.S. market almost a decade ago. But for now you can see just how capable the Jimny’s distant grandpa, a 1987 Suzuki Samurai, is in a side-by-side rock-crawling smackdown against a super-modified Jeep Wrangler.
