Goo-Net Find Of The Week: A Suzuki Alto Hustle, Our New Kei Van Obsession

Welcome back to Goo-Net Find of the Week, a series in which we pretend we’re not procrastinating on a Friday afternoon by idly browsing the coolest online used car platform in the world, Japan’s Goo-Net Exchange.

We consider ourselves pretty enormous car nerds at CT Towers, which is why, like a zoologist uncovering some hitherto-undiscovered species of beetle, we’re always excited to stumble across a vehicle we had no inkling ever existed.

That’s what we came upon today on our weekly trawling of Goo-Net. Listed under Suzuki’s models, we found something called an Alto Hustle. Now, the Alto we know. It’s been at the heart of Suzuki’s kei car offering in Japan for decades, you’ve probably encountered the hot Works version many a time in Gran Turismo’s virtual used car dealerships, and we’ve even received a couple of versions of it in the UK.

But an Alto Hustle? That was a mystery to us. Turns out, it’s a third-gen Alto in which the stereo exclusively plays a flute-based disco one-hit wonder from 1975. No, wait – it’s a third-gen Alto with a van back end grafted onto it.

Yes, like a ’90s Japanese version of the Citroen 2CV Fourgonnette, the Alto Hustle taps into a particularly geeky part of our brain that finds small car-based vans appealing. That’s especially true when they’ve had a sporty makeover, as this one has – it’s got an Alto Works-style double rear spoiler arrangement and offset bonnet scoop, some bucket seats with an extremely jazzy pattern, a SuperTrapp aftermarket exhaust, and a set of StanceMagic wheels rather hilariously wrapped in sticky Bridgestone Potenza rubber.

Whether anything’s been done underneath to give it some go to match the show, we don’t know. The listing suggests it’s all-wheel drive, which the Hustle was originally available with, and turbocharged, which it wasn’t – however, the presence of a titchy intercooler suggests that this has indeed had an Alto Works engine dropped into it wholesale.

It is still automatic, which might sap some of the fun out of things, but nevertheless, if you want to combine your love of driving with the needs of your inner-city delivery business, we think we’ve found your new ride. That’s assuming you can stump up the ¥982,500, or around £4800, being asked for it, plus whatever it costs to import. If you can, then we implore you to Do The Hustle.