2017 & 2018 Suzuki Cars, Trucks & SUVs Reviews & Ratings

Suzuki Motor Co. is a Japanese company known for producing many different types of vehicles, including ATVs, motorcycles, 4x4s, wheelchairs, and compact automobiles. The company also builds outboard marine engines and several types of internal combustion engines as well. Overall, Suzuki is the ninth biggest auto manufacturer in terms of production volume on a global level. The company is also the fourth largest auto manufacturer in Japan, following the big three companies stationed there: Honda, Nissan, and Toyota. Suzuki is truly an international company. It has factories in over twenty countries and distributors in almost two-hundred countries.

Suzuki began in 1909 when Michio Suzuki began his own loom shop, Suzuki Loom Works, in Hamamatsu, Japan. At the time, the country's silk industry was flourishing, and Suzuki profited greatly from this trend by building looms. Michio even found an innovative way to build a new kind of loom in 1929, and he sold these looms internationally, founding over a hundred patents and rights for his inventions. The loom business continued for another decade, at which time Suzuki decided to expand his company by including other products. He decided that small cars were the next big thing in 1937, and after two years of work, Suzuki had several prototype cars built. These prototypes included a new kind of engine: a four-cylinder, four-stroke engine that was liquid-cooled and featured an aluminum gearbox and crankcase.

Like most automakers and auto manufacturers at the time, Suzuki automobile ventures were put on pause with the arrival of WWII, due to the fact the government deemed them a commodity unworthy of important war materials. After the war, looms were again produced, but this ended with the cotton market collapse of 1951. So, again, Suzuki found his way back to automobiles. Similar to other Japanese automakers of the time, Suzuki began fitting engines to bicycles to provide cheap transportation. Suzuki built his own double-sprocket gear system for these bikes, and it was so innovative he received a subsidy from the government to keep creating new motorcycle product. This is how the Suzuki Motor Corporation was born.

Suzuki was producing six-thousand bicycles a month by 1954 and had changed its company name to the current title, as well. Finally, Suzuki got what he had been dreaming of with the creation of the Suzuki Suzulight in 195- a small automobile with 4-wheel independent suspension and 4WD (both innovative features for the time). Suzuki has done well in the market since then, creating such famous automobiles as the Suzuki Alto, which is now in its seventh generation (being introduced in 1979). Suzuki has partnered with many different companies (most with which it has competed) on technologies and designs like Fiat, Subaru, Chevrolet, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Mazda, and Volkswagen. Because Suzuki is a multinational company with many products, it competes with several companies throughout different markets. It also has several subsidiary companies with which it shares, like the Maruti Suzuki company in India. Some of the most popular current Suzuki models include the Grand Vitara SUV, the Equator pickup truck, and the SX4 (in Crossover, Sport, and Sportback variations).