Forget the Forenza.

Christmas is nearly upon us; and so it was that I found myself driving southbound on University Avenue earlier this week after some holiday shopping.  I wasn’t really feeling any sort of Christmas spirit, because traffic kind of sucked and the road surface was even worse thanks to packed down snow and ice.  That outlook didn’t improve at all after I ended up following behind today’s featured vehicle. 

As always, pardon the horrible photographs due to the usual slew of excuses: dash cam, nighttime, moving subjects, my lousy photography skills, etc….  I present to you, the Suzuki Forenza.  This one was sporting Missouri plates and its occupants threw no less than 6 pieces of garbage out of their car (fast food wrappers, it looked like) between 37^th Ave and Lowry Ave NE.  Right then, all I wanted for Christmas was to have some way to gather up all the crap they tossed into the street and launch it though the back window of their crappy little car along with a note telling them to pick up their trash and drive it and their litterbug selves back to Missouri.  Alas, my car is not equipped with the road rager catapult option, so I had to just fume at them from afar. 

Let’s learn about our boorish Missouri litterbug’s chosen mode of conveyance, shall we?  The Suzuki Forenza was offered from 2004-2008.  The name is a bit deceiving, because this car wasn't actually built by Suzuki.  It was made by Daewoo and sold in the US as a Suzuki.  They had a decent list of standard features, like four wheel disc brakes, front and side airbags, a decent stereo with redundant steering wheel controls, and power windows and locks.  To top it off, the Forenza came with a 7 year/100,000 mile warranty to entice buyers.  While it may have seemed like good value for the money (the Forenza could undercut its popular competitors like the Honda Civic and the Toyota Corolla by a considerable sum if you didn't load up on options), what buyers got was a car with mushy handling, and boring performance courtesy of a yawn-inducing 2.0L I4 engine with an output of 127 HP and 131 lb-ft of torque.

So, today’s car sucks, and apparently, so do the people in it.  But, let’s not permit that to influence our attitude about Suzuki, a company that sadly withdrew from the US car market recently…. But not before giving us a sedan that more than made up for the soggy mess that was the Forenza.  I don’t have a photo, but if you’re looking for a nice Suzuki, I recommend a little sedan called the Kizashi.  It represented a high note on which to end Suzuki’s presence in the US car market.  Available with AWD, which I love because it is a very useful option to have here in Minnesota, the Kizashi featured a 2.4L I4 with 180 HP and 170 lb-ft of torque.  Standard features included eight airbags, dual zone climate control, a push button start, and a 7speaker sound system with USB input and CD player.  The Kizashi struck a great balance between economy, capability, performance, and options.  Maybe if Suzuki had brought us the Kizashi instead of sending us a Daewoo dressed as a Suzuki in the first place, they’d still be players in the car game.  Bah humbug to those ding dongs from Missouri –they deserve their lousy little Forenza, we’ll take the Kizashi, thanks.