Filed under: Budget, Truck, Suzuki
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The compact pickup market in the U.S. has been languishing for more than a decade, but that doesn’t mean that a fuel-efficient truck with a small footprint doesn’t have a place in the States. Suzuki has been watching the market closely and thinks that it could make a case for bringing a pint-sized pickup to the U.S.
When asked what could be coming down the pipeline in the next few years, a senior exec at Suzuki told Autoblog that the automaker could import a compact truck to the U.S. based on the next generation Suzuki Jimny. The Jimny - also known as the Samurai in the States - has continued to chug along outside of North America, and with the next iteration due to arrive in three years’ time, Suzuki could bring the body-on-frame SUV to the U.S. with a truck bed.
But the problem with compact pickups is cost. The Ford Ranger might make a compelling case for itself, but when it’s only a few grand less than a larger, more practical full-sizer, buyers tend to go big and go home with an F-150.
So to bring a pickup to the States, Suzuki would have to not only have get the pricing right, but nail both fuel economy and equipment - all while turning a profit in the process. Let’s hope that if they pull the trigger, they decide to have some fun with it and make it look like the X-Head concept shown above. After all, the Nissan Frontier-based Equator pickup has been on the market since 2009, and it hasn’t exactly made a splash.Suzuki considering (another) small pickup for U.S. originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 26 Jul 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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