The second generation of the Suzuki Swift was a remarkable car. Compact, but with a grand and especially long career. In Europe, the car owes its many years of service to two facelifts, the largest of which we hoist on stage today.
The second Suzuki Swift appeared on the market in 1988. The car got a design that we would describe with the knowledge of today as “typical 90s” and certainly looked for a compact, cheap hatchback quite sporty. The recognizable appearance certainly did not come across as “Swift” everywhere, but, like its predecessor, it had many brand and type names. The differences were not limited to the logos, but the different North American, European, Asian and Australian versions were often given their own front.
In Europe this generation of the Swift was on the price lists from 1989 to 2003. The car appeared as a three-door and five-door hatchback and as a sedan, with the latter two variants having a longer wheelbase. The hatchback versions initially had blocked rear light units with a license plate clamped in between, but this already made way in the early 90s for a continuous rear light beam with a light signature that is very recognizable by four pips.
However, that is not the renewal round that we are talking about today. Eight years after the introduction, Suzuki decided it wasn’t necessary to come up with a completely new model. Instead, the European Swift was fitted with a completely new front in 1996, with smaller headlight units and a larger, more eye-catching grille. The direction indicators moved from the bumper to the place where previously the city lights were housed in a separate unit. At the rear, the rear light section was interrupted once again, this time by a sprayed-on piece of plastic that was part of the bumper. The previously neatly rectangular light units were replaced by diagonally cut ones.
With this appearance, upgraded technology and a solid modernized interior, the brave Swift lasted until 2003, after which the much more modern and at least as striking third generation followed. The sedan version disappeared from the scene in Western Europe at the last facelift, but was preserved further to the East. Instead of the four-door, Europe was introduced to the umpteenth derivative: the four-wheel-driven but otherwise almost identical Subaru Justy.