Suzuki Totes Swift Sport and Three Concepts to Tokyo (Guess Which One We Want)

Suzuki may be struggling to maintain much of a presence in the U.S., but the brand remains a successful purveyor of small vehicles elsewhere in the world. Indeed, we could see the cars it’s showing at the 2011 Tokyo auto show being received well in global markets—and there’s one in particular that we wouldn’t mind seeing here. A rundown of the quartet follows.

Regina

While Suzuki sees its Regina (above) as a next-generation global compact car, it’s hard not to see the car as a sort of micro-fied update of an old French car, the Citroën DS. The homage is strongest in the droopy rear quarter with its partial fender spats, although the front end seems to evoke another “icon”: the NSU Prinz 4. We’re not sure any male would want to be seen in a car like the Regina, especially if it was named Regina—although keeping the name might guarantee Saskatchewan sales success. But anyone can appreciate the fuel-economy and weight claims: 75 mpg on gasoline (according to the Japanese JC08 test cycle) and a feathery 1609 pounds.

Q Concept

It seems like each Japanese carmaker brings at least one “fishbowl” to every Tokyo auto show, and the Q Concept is Suzuki’s 2011 effort. Just 8.2 feet in length, the two-seat Q Concept is evocative of portable CD players from the 1990s and can be configured as a passenger pod or a delivery pod (we refuse to call it a car). It can also be parked pretty much anywhere (although preferably not in direct sunlight, lest anything left inside fry like an ant under a magnifying glass. Will the Japanese succeed someday in making pods like this the norm in urban settings? Hopefully not any time soon, but you can bet your last can of fish food that they’ll keep thinking about it.

Swift EV Hybrid

Re-entering the earth’s atmosphere after admiring the pie-in-the-sky concepts above brings us to the Swift EV Hybrid, which wraps Swift clothing around range-extending tech like that used in the Chevrolet Volt. Suzuki claims that compact cars like the Swift are driven between 12 and 19 miles per day in Japan, a task the Swift EV Hybrid can handle on battery power alone. Longer distances are made possible by a range-extending engine-driven generator. Watch for it at an auto show near you, possibly renamed the Swift Range Extender.

Swift Sport

Of the four debutants that Suzuki is rolling out in Tokyo, the one we want most (and the one we would be most likely to get) is the “performance flagship of the Swift series,” the Swift Sport. Suzuki didn’t provide much in the way of details but did send along this solitary photo. The yellow Swift Sport basically appears to be a production-ready version of the Swift Sport S that Suzuki showed at the Geneva auto show last March, complete with darkened headlamp surrounds, large wheels, an aggressive front fascia, sill extensions, and a smoked single-framed grille like that found on the Kizashi. The only thing missing from the Swift S is the wide-body kit. We expect this model offer more power than the 123 horses of the last Swift Sport, while the transmission choices will be a six-speed manual or continuously variable automatic. You know which of the gearboxes we would choose.

For its part, Suzuki is still not talking about any plans to bring any Swift models here, where Suzuki dealers—the handful of them that remain, that is—are starved for product. We’d love it if the Swift Sport made it to our shores, but admit that a micro-bomber like it isn’t likely to contribute much in to the brand’s sales numbers.

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