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By Jonathan Crouch

Suzuki's S-Cross has gained an extra slice of visual pizazz in recent times. Jonathan Crouch drives the revised version.

Ten Second Reviewword count: 59

Suzuki's S-Cross compact SUV has gained a sharper look and more equipment in recent years and is based around a proven 1.4-litre mild hybrid powertrain. Plus there's plenty of space for a crossover of this size, lots of kit for the money and, unusually in this class, the option of a proper lockable 4WD system in the top versions.

Backgroundword count: 165

Suzuki must find it frustrating to see other brands doing so well in the thriving Crossover market. The Japanese maker has, after all, been offering products of this sort for some time, most notably the first generation SX4 model, originally launched way back in 2006, easily pre-dating the original Nissan Qashqai that most people think pioneered this class of car. That very first SX4 was a little too small, a little too shy and retiring and a little too poorly promoted to set the sales charts alight the way its Nissan competitor did, but Suzuki watched, learnt and came back fighting. As a result, in 2014 we got the SX4 S-Cross, a much more competitive proposition and a model that's gradually evolved. In 2020 it gained mild hybrid assistance for its 1.4-litre Boosterjet petrol engine and in late 2021, the looks were facelifted too, creating the car we're going to look at here, a compact SUV but a particularly spacious and really quite efficient one.

Driving Experienceword count: 251

This S-Cross is based around Suzuki's usual 1.4 Boosterjet Mild Hybrid engine (which offers 109PS with 235Nm of torque). This four cylinder unit comes with either manual or auto transmission. Both transmissions can also be had with ALLGRIP AWD. You may be familiar with the way that mild hybrid engines work but just in case not, here's a quick re-cap. Basically, energy that would otherwise be lost when braking or cruising off-throttle is harvested via a kinetic energy recovery system and sent to a small lithium-ion battery that here has been placed beneath the front passenger seat. This is used to drive a belt-driven 'ISG' unit (an 'Integrated Starter/Generator') and power the engine's stop/start system. Suzuki's current 48-volt set-up can also deliver a couple of other important benefits. The first is something quite unusual amongst current mild hybrids - the ability for this car to idle and even coast on full-electric power, though only below 10mph. The other benefit here is something supposed to be now quite common amongst mild hybrid models - the ability to 'torque-fill' under acceleration to compensate for turbo lag. Which is just as well because this S-Cross Hybrid's 'K14D'-series engine was reduced in power a little when the MHEV tech was added to it. But at the same time it gained 5Nm of torque (235Nm in total). The 62mph sprint in the manual 2WD version takes 11.4s en route to 115mph. You can improve that to 10.1s in the ALLGRIP version, which tops out at 111mph.

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