I remember passing my test in Brighton England when I was 17 years old. When I was at the beach I always dreamed of having a convertible so I could go down the beach front. My dream led me to the Suzuki Sj413 Samurai.
I found “The One”
I’ve always loved the idea of driving uphill to get a better view of the road ahead of me; That drew me to Suzuki mini jeeps; that, and refreshing of course. They were cheap to buy and cheap to buy. After looking around for a while, I finally “found the one”. It was a 1987 Suzuki Samurai, blue with a white soft top. It had 123,000 miles on the clock, and it was sharp. It was certainly a great chicken.
The 1987 models were just rebuilt and had new interiors. I remember the dashboard being very square, and I remember it being nothing but plastic. The garbage goes in, and I remember thinking, if only they had brought the interiors back this year, what where before?
Creature comfort
There are absolutely no complaints about this car. Take a basic car model, and then make it even more basic, then you’re in the field of Samurai. No stereo, heater, 2 air vents, basic controls and a wiper and that was it. storage space, there was none. You had a little bit of space behind the seat that’s about half a foot wide and about 4 feet long, so you could put a hood, and then there were some pockets in the door and then the box of boxing. The seats were covered in vinyl and were very uncomfortable, but care was taken; I was going to look cool in the Jeep. The seats offered no support at all.
This was one thirsty car
Today I am very conscious of mpg; I didn’t care for a good job then. In my Suzuki I was getting about 16MPG on the interstate (or motorway as we call it in England) and 13mpg in the city. Put the car in 4Wd and the car drank gas like crazy, so using 4WD was not an option. Needless to say, with gas prices insanely high in England, I was always flat broke trying to cool down because of the appetite of the car – gas
Top Down, Wind in the Hair
I bought the Suzuki so I could take the top off and drive it real cool around town, especially while driving along the beach. The top featured a series of straps and zippers. The top was easily removed and could be stored behind the seats.
I like this more: the hood comes down, the wind in the hair lives the dream, and then the rain comes! Oh boy, do you have problems when it happens! Trying to get the hood back on is not easy at all and takes at least 5 minutes at the best of times, so you can imagine what it’s like when it rains! Trying to get the hood on the runners, popping pops and zips in the rain, was a nightmare. Needless to say, when you took off the hood and got back in the car, it was like swimming around in an aquarium.
In Ride
This has to be the worst car I have ever driven in my life. If you’ve had fillings done before, and you get in that car and drive around, you’ll have to do it again because they’ll shake! Every bump, every pebble you hit sends tremors through the car! It’s like an earthquake! In my eyes small in my eyes it was worth hanging on for though it was cool.
The Little Engine That Couldn’t
2 engine options were available. It was 1.0 and 1.3. 1.0 I’m glad I didn’t sit. I took one for the turtle and I felt like I was going back, even the old people in the small electric scooters They fooled me. 1.3 is a little better, but not by much! There is a bunch of power in first and second, but nothing after that. I guarantee the output would be higher than the whoopee pillow. On the motorways the car was racing at 70mph, and when the engine screeched it sounded so loud it would explode.
I was young and wanted a cool-cars”>cool-cars pose in. As much as I hated Suzuki, I look back and realize how much I loved it. It was the first car in my life and I always remember it as the car I hated.
