Well, after about three weeks wait and some further excitement while the dealer fitted a towbar then debugged the towing electrics I finally took delivery of a brand new SZ4 on Monday.
No photos because it's a new stock Jimny and we all know what they look like. OK, if you really insist, try
www.suzuki.co.uk/cars/cars/new/jimny/jimny
and select blue-black/grey as the colour and that's what it looks like
.
Only had chance to to put a very gentle 50ish miles on it so far (550 miles of running in to go....), but my initial on-road impressions are that it's pretty good. Handling and performance very much what I'd expect from a "proper" 4x4. The view from the driver's seat is pretty good as well. Not quite the Defender height I'm used to, but not far off it.
Feels very odd having such a clean, tidy vehicle. Won't last......
Next step is to get some Dinitrol into the chassis (loads of stonechip on the outside, seems to be nothing on the inside), and onto the axles, suspension etc.