6 reasons why the 2016 Suzuki Alto Works could be the world's most cheap & cheerful new car you can buy from the showroom in 2016

If you don’t know what a 軽自動車 (aka kei car) is and why most have ‘only’ 64 horsepower, watch ‘Kei to the City’ film by Mightycarmods https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu6h5IoqkoA before you read this.

First, a quick history lesson.

Suzuki in Europe are known for the Swift Sport warm hatch. But they’ve also had quite a portfolio of cheap-and-cheerful cars like the Cappuccino, which rivalled the Honda Beat and the Autozam AZ-1. The Cappuccino featured a turbocharged 3 cylinder 657cc engine, producing 64ps- the most powerful kei car in the early 90s. But more importantly, this engine was also fitted to a FWD or AWD hatchback called the ‘Alto Works’ . Unless you knew about this car on Gran Turismo, it has been overlooked through western car community. This 4th generation (codenamed HA11) was very well-received for its affordable price, and often used for one-make races, hill climbs and rallying. Suzuki axed production by 1998 and for the next decade, there wasn’t really a spiritual successor until 2015; where Suzuki unveiled the ‘Alto Turbo RS’. While the RS appealed many local enthusiasts, the performance and driving involvement was hindered by the only transmission offered- CVT.

Now, the car you see in this photo is called the 2016 Alto Works. Yes, the name is back! I know that you can get great used cars for cheap as chips nowadays but here are 6 reasons why the car in this photo could be the world’s most cheap & cheerful car:

1. TURBO - because who doesn’t like choo-choo sounds? But in all seriousness, you can easily yield more power (at your own risk). Just think about the power-to-weight ratio potential, or even an engine swap from a bigger car…

2. MANUAL - obviously more driver satisfaction than the 2015 Alto Turbo RS

3. WEIGHT - With all the modern safety equipment & technology, the FWD model opted with the manual weighs only 670kg. Thats 30kg lighter than the cappuccino, 50kg less than an Elise and half the weight of a MK7 Golf GTI (which is considered a ‘light car’)

4. PRICE - It starts from 1.5 million yen (you have the internet to figure out the exchange rate for your currency)

5. OWNERSHIP COSTS - its a kei car after all, cheap on fuel, cheap on tax, cheap on insurance, cheap on replacement parts and consumables compared to a much bigger, heavier and faster car

6. RECAROs - this has to be one of the cheapest ways to get a car equipped with Recaro seats. Just let that sink in, Recaros on a kei car…

Now how awesome would it be to fit a LSD, grippy & fatter tyres and gain 100hp out from this engine?

As this is a true Japanese Domestic Model, there are no plans of Suzuki to sell this car to those of you who live outside Japan. Are you butthurt that I wasted your time reading all this?