As the forebears of the Maruti Suzuki Jimny, the SJ and the Samurai originated as Kei cars, compact size has always been in its DNA. Granted, Maruti stretched out the Jimny for India, turning it into a 5-door, but that still resulted in a sub-4 metre car (it is just 340mm longer than the 3-door). You may be wondering why am I going on and on about the size of the Jimny, well, that’s because the compact dimensions make the Jimny a fabulous city car.
I recently had to drive it through the heart of the city on a regular basis, and the Jimny adapted to the choc-a-bloc traffic with impunity. The visibility all around was excellent thanks to the thin A pillars, and having almost no overhang it was ridiculously easy to pilot through the throngs of vehicles filling up the roads. The manual transmission, though notchy, has a positive action and didn’t make me wish for the automatic even once.
Unfortunately, Indian car buyers have a tendency to gravitate towards getting the maximum car for their money, so they tend to prefer the Mahindra Thar with its imposing size adding to the road presence. But I feel a thinking man would choose the Jimny, because however much we want to live the fantasy of being explorers, we are driving in cities most of the time. The small footprint of the Jimny, coupled with the 1.5-litre petrol engine that’s responsive in a way only a Japanese engine can be, makes it a proper hoot.
The short gearing comes into play as well and while it hurts the fuel economy a bit, you can keep the car in third gear for most situations and get away with it. I genuinely think this is one of the most fun way to deal with the weekday morning rush hour traffic.
