Goodbye Jimny??

Not sure if this has be reported in this forum, but Suzuki South Africa (where I am for the next day then back to DE/UK) has announced that Suzuki as a compay will be stopping production of the Jimny after 2025. I commented elsewhere a few days ago just how prolific the JImny is here - I cannot believe how many there are. Mainly Gen 3 facelifts then plenty plenty Gen 4 of all types and models. I was recently in Perth which is total 4x4 country as well and there were many Jimny there, but nothing like what I see in SA. I even saw an SJ410 in beautiful condition this afternoon. Having owned and used most true 4x4 models since I started driving in the early 1970s - (first 4x4 a series 2 SWB landy, 18 months surveying in the Drakensburg mountains) this breaks my heart to read this news. End of an Era....

Source?

Perhaps there is some confusion with the fact that the Jimny has been discontinued in Europe/GB from 2025.

Very unlikely Maruti Suzuki would stop making a car they just started making, it seems to me.

Google news feed on my phone, South African edition. Reasons cited are low worldwide demand and significant failure to meet EU emissions. Lengthy article citing a number of sources.

Despite the article stating specifically that this is a world wide cessation, you may well be correct in that this just refers to the EU market. Lets see whether there is further confirmation of this in the next few weeks.

A big challenge is likely to be the "mini land cruiser/prada" Toyota plans to release in 2025 which targets the Jimny market head on.

As mentioned Suzuki stopped importing the Jimny to Europe earlier this year, the reason stated is that they have moved to a Hybrid or EV line up and dropping all cars which ICE only.

Mentioned in the news today is that the UK government is considering dropping the EV targets of 22% of cars and 10% of vans due to the lower take up of EVs.

At present for every ICE car/van they sell over the limit they get fined £15,000 and the manufacturer's want the thresholds dropped.

Ironic really as Suzuki stopped selling the car version of the Jimny in 2020 due to this rule.

I always wonder when market size drops below a certain level it becomes uneconomic to manufacture and they drop it from the range, they can make more money making something else, so whilst I can see dropping manufacture in Japan (they made the EU Jimny there), I would think it was unlikely they would drop it from Maruti, in fact they might make worldwide sales from there.

Robin

I haven't heard of anything about production stopping elsewhere for the Jimny although it wouldn't surprise me if it did stop all together as the 3 door SZ5 version is old now and would be due a refresh but probably not worth doing for only a few markets. The new car industry is grim at the moment and only getting worse and I think we will
see is more manufacturers going bust because they can't make cars people want and can afford.