Suzuki Alto - Surprisingly Good and Refreshing

For a thing that comes from India, you'd expect it to be quirky in design like a Mahindra Scorpio or basic-utilitarian like Tata's pickups. But the Suzuki Alto isn't anything like that.

It's a future-proof car designed by Suzuki, incorporating European styling preferences, money-saving features and environmental considerations.

Slightly smaller than the ever popular Perodua Myvi but lighter, the Alto looks refreshingly stylish and promises to get you from point A to point B in safety and comfort while saving on fuel.

Say what you may about an eco-friendly, fuel saving car, but if looks butt-ugly, no one's going to want to buy it unless he or she really doesn't care about looking silly in a butt-ugly car. So, for a car to sell, it needs to be stylish and eye-catching.

As style preferences go, European style preferences tend to help cars sell better than those that adopt other style preferences. Hence, it is smart of Suzuki to adopt contemporary design elements found in popular European small cars epitomised by the Fiat 500.

More than that, the Alto has a very low drag coefficient of 0.30 and its body is strong enough to earn a 4-star Euro NCAP rating (according to Suzuki). At the same time, the body uses a lot of high-tensile steel, resulting in a good weight-to-power ratio, which makes the Alto feel nippy and sip (instead of guzzle) fuel.

Most important of all, the Alto comes with airbags (including curtain airbags for side-impact) as well as anti-brake lock system (ABS) with electronic brake-force distribution (EBD) and brake assist - these are crucial for you to avoid accidents.

All this and more for about RM51,000+, which is about RM6,000 more than the smaller Viva Elite of comparable specifications and about RM5,000 cheaper than the Myvi of similar specifications.

Personally, if I were in the market for a small new car, the Alto is probably what I'd go for.