Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire - The eager-beaver marketing mavens at Suzuki GB have released details of the Celerio city car, due to go on sale in Britain in February 2015.
This has stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest among their colleagues at Suzuki SA, who were hoping to keep the replacement for the entry-level Alto under the radar until at least a little closer to the South African launch of the Celerio in January.
Yes, that's right; South Africa will be the first country outside of India, where it's made, to get the new A-segment Suzuki global compact city car, first seen in public at the Geneva motor show in March this year.
Suzuki is known as a small-car company, and the Celerio certainly is compact - just 3600mm long on a 2425mm wheelbase, 1600mm wide and 1530mm high - but, thanks to a non-slanting roofline and upright seating, provides accommodation for five and 254 litres of boot space.
DUALJET ENGINE
Standard kit, in the UK at least, will include air conditioning, alloy rims, radio/CD player with Bluetooth connectivity and a USB port, six airbags and electronic stability control.
The Celerio will be available at launch with Suzuki's familiar 998cc three-cylinder K-series petrol engine, rated for 50kW at 6000 revs and 90Nm at 3500rpm, driving the front wheels through a five-speed manual 'box, and using 4.3 litres per 100km in the combined cycle.
Scheduled for release in the third quarter of 2015 is a new DualJet version of the same engine with higher compression ratio, twin fuel-injectors and idle stop, mated to automated manual gearbox with a 'creep' function for heavy traffic, for which Suzuki promises the same outputs but at a combined-cycle cost of only 3.7 litres per 100km.