Comparison: Suzuki Jimny vs Range Rover

In mud, there’s surprisingly little difference between £15k and £100k off-roaders

After a 20-year run, Suzuki’s titchy 4x4 Jimny is being pensioned off. The good news is that, unlike Land Rover who didn’t replace their Defender, Suzuki is bringing out a new Jimny, and it’s looking every bit as Tonka-toyish as the old one.

To give the current model a fitting sendoff, we arranged for it to fight an unusual battle at one of our favourite and most extreme offroad courses – Avalanche Adventure in Leicestershire – against a car nearly seven times as expensive: the Range Rover.

Your first thought on getting into the Jimny’s determinedly grey cabin is the absence of modernity. The plastic dash is hard, the carpets are scratchy, and the protruding interior light and manual heater controls are from a far-away era.

But you have to remember that this game little trooper has been soldiering along in this iteration for two decades. The all-new model that will be replacing it is only the fourth version since the first Jimny debuted in 1970.

Forty-seven years is a decent lifespan for any car. The Range Rover knows all about that: it too was launched in 1970, with a £1998 price tag. Things have changed somewhat since then. The optional extras fitted to our £100,000 Range Rover Autobiography test vehicle came to more than the cost of the entire Suzuki.

Don’t go thinking that something as small as the Jimny couldn’t possibly do proper off-roading. Its pukka ladder-frame chassis and switchable low-range transmission will take it to places you might think twice about walking in, let alone driving through. Surely, though, it wouldn’t be able to compete with the majestic Range Rover?

The plan was to lead the way with the RR and see at what point the Suzuki fell by the wayside. The RR driver had arrived in his prized designer red trainers, confident that he wouldn't be getting them dirty.

Turned out he should have brought his walking boots.

Our Jimny was a top-of-the-line 1.3 SZ4, costing £14,784 and pumping out a comedic-sounding 84bhp from its four-cylinder petrol engine. Its big advantage of course was weight, or the lack of it, at just 1090kg.

The test starts off in a straightforward fashion as our drivers head round a muddy, rutted corner bend. It’s easy meat for both cars. The RR tips off down a steep slope, Hill Descent Control managing the speed with effortless grace and zero wheel slip, but the Suzuki is still behind, gliding along with no problem.

The Range Rover driver tries everything he can over the next ten minutes to leave that annoying little white shoebox behind stuck. Thick, wellie-losing mud, the quarry’s steepest climb in the quarry, and mud ruts deep enough to scuff the Autobiography’s tummy: nothing works. The Suzuki remains obstinately glued to the RR’s rear bumper.

Finally, they reach the climb that should finish off the Jimny. It’s not that high, but it’s a sudden and very sharp incline coated in the course’s finest, slipperiest mud. The 2.6-tonne Range Rover approaches the ramp. The driver steps on the throttle. A split second after it hits the base of the climb, after only a little ascent, it comes to a wheel-spinning halt with the throttle pinned. It’s stuck.

Nothing for it but to back off the slope. Now it’s the Suzuki’s turn. With all 84 brake horsepower engaged, the small white beastie hits the rise, bounces upwards, and gets into what seems like a hopeless 30-degree angle mired in heavy mud. It might tip over backwards.

After some four-wheel scrabbling, the driver concedes defeat. But then he announces that one more shot with more speed and more commitment might win the day. Sure enough, instead of lodging in the clay, the accursed Jimny heaves itself up and over the top.

In an attempt to save the Range Rover’s face, its driver lines it up for a second go. It’s more committed but the car lurches left as it gets on the slope, sliding awkwardly as the wheels again spin. It’s not going to make it.

It’s probably true that a more accomplished offroad wheelman (or lady) would have got the RR over that hill, but the point about the Jimny being a genuine off-road machine is well proved.

The Range Rover driver decides to sample its magic, laughing at the hilarious contrast between the two cabins. Switching from the Range Rover to the Jimny is like moving from a Dorchester penthouse room into a Tokyo capsule hotel cubicle.

Pressing the 4WD-L button engages the four-wheel-drive system and low-range transmission. The kangarooing off the line exposes the shortness of first gear: sticking it in second gear is much more effective, but still the engine seems to always be running between 4000 and 6000rpm, and you're thrown around like a pair of socks in a washing machine. It’s so hectic compared to the RR’s serenity.

Your arms are constantly twirling away at the steering wheel, which has four rotations’ worth of lock, but the traction from the slender all-season tyres is little short of incredible. The feeling of all four wheels spinning in the mud never gets old.

This third-generation Jimny is simple, riotous fun, the nearest equivalent to an offroad Caterham. You get everything you need and nothing you don’t. It deserves a place in our hearts as one of the most engaging and able 4x4s – at any price.