Despite being a small SUV with a familiar household name, the Suzuki Vitara was never a part of the wildly popular crossover group that is forming an ever-more-lucrative slice of the family car market.

Unlike 25 years ago, the all new Vitara now finds itself among a raft of similarly small crossovers - the Nissan Juke and the Renault Captur to name a few. So for the fourth generation car, Suzuki's focus was on improving comfort, efficiency, performance and refinement rather than making it a mud-plugger like it used to be.

After all, being a late entrant to the ultra-competitive segment that becomes more congested with each passing year, the crossover will need something going for it.


Exterior 

The Suzuki Vitara has gone from being a rugged, no-nonsense off-roader to being more of a 'lifestyle' crossover, with the focus on trendiness rather than toughness.

The car breaks the mould for Suzuki in terms of design. Stylistically, some may even go as far as saying it has more than a dash of Range Rover Evoque about it, thanks to the different colours available with a contrasting roof and the clamshell bonnet as well as the grille.

It's that look that will also distinguish the Suzuki crossover from its stablemate - the S-Cross - which it shares its platform with, but the latter is focused more on compact people mover-style roominess and packaging.

Park the Vitara next to the S-Cross and they look virtually the same size, but the Vitara's official dimensions of 4,175mm x 1,775mm x 1,610mm (L x W x H) reveal that it is actually slightly shorter and narrower than its sibling. It's still bigger than some of its rivals, though, so that definitely allows it to have a sizeable presence on the road.

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