Suzuki Jimny LCV returns to the UK as a light commercial vehicle

Woah, didn’t the Suzuki Jimny go off sale?

Yes - it genuinely did. After roughly a year away, it has reappeared, but with a key change: it’s now sold only as an LCV (a light commercial vehicle - basically a van). Suzuki also says it’s arriving on UK roads in “very limited numbers”. In practice, that’s 480 units in its first year, which works out at around three per dealer. Putting your name on the list for one is likely to be tougher than getting hold of a GT3 Touring.

Really?

Suzuki reckons demand is far higher than supply - it says it could shift ten times the volume and is already having to turn buyers away. Meanwhile, used examples of the previous four-seat Jimny are still fetching £25,000-plus, despite stacking up both mileage and years. So don’t be surprised if speculators circle these Jimny LCVs as well, given the list price is £16,796 before VAT - or an equally tempting £19,999 if you’re a private buyer adding the tax yourself.

What do I get for the money?

There’s only a single trim level, and it’s charmingly no-frills. You won’t find sat nav or climate control; instead you get a digital radio and straightforward air conditioning. The cabin is absolutely covered in physical buttons.

Paint is the one area with some variety - including a two-tone finish like our old Jimny long-termer - but the smart steel wheels pictured here are fixed across the range. Which is ideal, really, because you can smash along cratered lanes without a second thought as you trundle around the countryside with your rural dog-grooming operation running from the rear.

How much fur detangler will I fit back there?

As you’d expect, the Jimny LCV deletes the rear seats - and to be fair, we spent most of our time in the old Jimny with them folded anyway. With them gone, you’re left with a pleasingly boxy 863-litre load bay, plus a barrier ahead of it to stop anything launching towards you and your passenger when an off-road jaunt gets lively.

That said, it’s only 33 litres more than a standard Jimny with the seats folded; the real difference is that the load floor is now completely flat. Payload is 150kg, which isn’t much, and it’s also worth noting the rear windows haven’t been blanked out.

Remind me of its performance.

Power comes from a proudly rough-edged 1.5-litre petrol engine with no trendy turbocharging, paired with a five-speed manual gearbox. Output is a mighty 100bhp and 95lb ft, which is “good” for 0–62mph in… well, Suzuki has never officially published a figure. Assume 12 seconds with a helpful breeze behind you.

Top speed is 90mph, and the not-particularly-green stats read 36.7mpg and 173g/km of CO2. Still, if those numbers are a deal-breaker you’re missing the point - this is built for hard-nosed utilitarianism first and foremost.

So it’s good off road…

That’s where it makes the most sense. On tarmac a Jimny can be good fun when you’re in the mood, but it can feel nervous and fidgety when you’re not - especially in bad weather. Drive one in a strong crosswind and you’ll be reliving it for days.

Get it off road, though, and it comes alive: you can throw it up and down absurdly steep climbs with barely a worry, helped by those tiny overhangs that remove a lot of the stress. The drivetrain switches between rear-wheel drive and four-wheel drive, and the latter gives you high and low ranges.

It’s also the moment you see why Suzuki has stubbornly kept this engine even though its emissions unceremoniously booted the Jimny out of European showrooms: it tolerates punishment. It’ll buzz away like the pistons are about to punch out through the bonnet, yet it keeps on asking for more.

It works just as hard as the suspension, with the whole vehicle (sorry, van) feeling completely at home bouncing through forests, quarries, or whatever other daft places you’ve arrived at by blindly trusting a sat nav set to “shortest route”. You’ll stumble into the middle of a classified firing range long before the oily bits underneath you are anywhere near their limit.

Is there a catch?

Only that its usefulness is almost as constrained as its supply. Something this uncompromising is rare now - and that’s exactly the source of the Jimny’s long-standing appeal. Making it into a van arguably improves it, too: the rear seats were always tiny (and the boot was tinier still if you left them in place), and a vehicle this proudly practical can only benefit from more carrying ability.

The eye-watering prices of used Jimnys also suggest that spending as little as £17k on a new one represents strong value - even if a Dacia Duster Commercial begins at £11,995 and offers triple the payload.

This gutsy little 4x4 goes beyond pure logic, and the fact Suzuki has worked so hard to put it back on sale - even while the rest of its car line-up is hybridised (with the marketing to match) - shows how important it is to have a “character” in the range. Even when that character comes with flaws.