The day has arrived. Where I decided to finally just lunge out of the status quo of big trucks, and follow my heart by doing something I had always wanted to do. I placed my order in August, and have been waiting impatiently. Every day I’ve been scouring the internet for updates and new pictures, and today is the day I drive it out the dealership. There are only about 50 of these in the country at the moment, so I’m beyond lucky that one of them is now mine. If you want to see what went down at the dealership, and my first drive home watch the video below, If you want to find out more information on my decision and reasoning behind this all, read on below.

Now for those of you who know me, you’ll know I used to drive a massive truck, the VW Amarok, now the Jimny is a lot smaller and this is definitely going to challenge my creativity with kitting it out for overlanding, but I accept the challenge… because, look how cool this thing looks!! The color looks even better in real life!

So they’ve taken the previous 1.3L, which was known for its incredible reliability and bored it out to a 1.5L, that will give it abit more torque for those tricky situations off-road, and it certainly helps out a bit on the highways too. The interior is simple, but in all honesty that’s just how I like it. It has the modern techy bits that I need, such as satnav (which im still trying to figure out how to load up) and apple car play, which has surprised me with how useful it is. The touchscreen is very responsive and although basic, it is practical. Generally, the features in the Jimny are a lot more exciting than my Amarok, which didn’t even have electric windows or any fancy electronic functions as my particular model was designed to be a farmers workhorse.

A big bonus now is having the 4 seats, countless times in the Amarok I had to borrow a different car just to do something as simple as go out for lunch with some friends. The purpose built off-road nature of the Jimny still has a practical around town functionality built in and that is something I really like. Being able to go into “weekend/work mode” and put the back seats down which gives me plenty of space in the back and if I really need to maximise space, I just pop the front seat down too and be able to carry long objects such as light stands or booms. In the same breathe if I need to take my girlfriend and her friend out for lunch, its as simple as popping the seats up and we are ready to go!

Speaking of seats, the legroom in the back of the vehicle has actually astonished me. I can comfortably sit in the back, which from outside of the vehicle looks like it would be a challenge.

So what does the future hold for the Jimny? In terms of modifications, I think first up will be a roof rack, there are a couple of options I’m looking at, at the moment. Next will be tyres, again there are a few options, I want to find out what the biggest tyre Suzuki will allow us to go without voiding our warranty, which is seeming to be a 215/75/15. Then we have a challenging choice between BFG KO2, General Grabber AT3 and Goodyear Wrangler Adventure… In terms of availability, the BFG and GT come in the size I’m looking at getting, the Wrangler, comes in a smaller size and a bigger size. One thing I learnt about tyre size on my Amarok, is that it can really kill the power of the vehicle if you go too big. On something like the Amarok, because it’s such a long wheel base vehicle, every inch of clearance counts.. With the Jimny having such a small engine, every nm of torque counts. But due to its solid axles and light weight, with just a bit of planning on the trails, you can navigate through and over treacherous sections much easier. So it’s going to be interesting to see where this little beast takes me over the coming years.

I’m considering hitting up one of the many 4×4 trails around here to play around a bit and get used to the vehicle in an off-road sense, then I want to actually head back to the eastern cape highlands and attempt the Baster voetpad pass again, this time with the Jimny. It was a great challenge last time in the Amarok, and I’d love to see how the Jimny tackles it now.

Then I’ll be visiting some friends this week to plan some exciting new modifications to the Jimny, some that haven’t ever been seen before. Then I will also try and maximize the space, for overlanding and lets just see where this all takes me.