BETTER PARTSThe Twins: Nissan Navara – Suzuki-Equator
In 2012, saw Suzuki were forced to the American market, but no one can say that the brand is not his best, has done. It was even a pick-up, al was there with the help of Nissan when invoked.
On the American market, you won't make it with only cars like the Swift and the Jimny; there's got to be really bigger stuff. That understood Suzuki in his last few years in the USA, but all the time and so came to the brand in 1998 with the XL-7. Initially, it was a firmly stretched seven-seater on the basis of the Grand Vitara, but from 2006 it was the XL7 (when without a hyphen) to a separate model. That leaned technically on General Motors products, but distinguished itself with its own body, and – once again - a third row of seats.
This was the SUV-part of the American line-up pretty covered and could Suzuki is going to focus on part two of the master plan: a medium-sized sedan. To buyers in globally popular segment to pull the Kizashi out of the hat drawn
With a fairly large SUV and an adult four-door in the line-up remained the Suzuki has only one task to the Americans, really to seduce: a pick-up introduce. The complete from the ground up development of such a model is a costly matter, so called the Japanese again, with the aid of a other manufacturer. This time they found that help was not at GM, but at no less than the Nissan. Suzuki picked up a " project pick-up must be modest by not for the giant Titan to go, but for the relatively modest Frontier. Indeed: the car we know as Navara. That the car was at all available was in the US was at the beginning of this century particularly, but with the Suzuki Equator, was the American compact-truck-buyer, there is again an option.
In particular, at the front, the difference between the Nissan and the 'Suzuki' is immediately apparent. In place of the chrome-laden, three-part / Nissan-grille mounted Suzuki a own instance and also the hood and the headlights were replaced. From the side, the resemblance thanks to the striking uitgeklopte wheel of the Navara was immediately clear and to the back, where pick-ups are actually all similar, is the lack of the plastic panel surrounding the logo is the biggest change. The inside was even less effort and did Suzuki make the own logo on it immediately if Nissan design recognizable steering wheel.
Even with the tightly revised range of Suzuki, the head is not above water to keep in the US and in 2012 pulled the note back out of the country. Of the Equator, there are ultimately only a few thousand built and it remained in one generation, have already got the concept of actually following. The Mercedes-Benz X-class is also on the Navara based...