Update – we have decided that the Suzuki Swift is all but indestructible. Swifty made it the entire way from Goodwood to Ulaanbaatar and barely blinked. She loved the hard accelerations while overtaking, negotiating rutted roads, fording rivers and absorbing the relentless vibration on non-existent tarmac. Her front suspension remains faultless and her rear, well, let’s say many women of a certain age could do with a bit of lift. After driving up a mountain pass on two cylinders we agreed her engine is nothing short of unbelievably strong for any car, not least one with only three cylinders. We made none of the modifications we’d thought about and from our blog you’ll see that our only real mechanical issue was a leaky oil filter, but that’s nothing to do with Suzuki. At the finish line people asked what we were driving and the response was “Oh, change the record, not another Suzuki!” We gratefully missed the mechanical dramas of so many teams that limped in or gave up well before the end. We love you Swifty and we’ll miss your pluck, courage, and reliability.
Our campaign to get a free 10,000 mile test drive in a Chevy Volt has come to naught. In the interest of time and urgency we settled on a Suzuki Swift. Our new ride has 47,000 miles on the clock, a one litre engine and meets all the rules and the spirit of the adventure. The Swift has a long pedigree and we are hoping our route is well supplied with spare parts. For those of you in the know, it has seen life in various guises, including in the USA as a Geo Metro. We made the decision to go right hand drive which is not a problem for the ambidextrous among us, but potentially exciting for the front seat passenger as we switch lanes on the continent.
We are planning on some modifications including a skid pad for the oil pan and a large roof rack to carry extra wheels (tyres and rims). Other practical things included epoxy in copious amounts, duct tape and good ol’ Yankee ingenuity, supported by a service manual, if we can find one.
