What's the news?
Suzuki has shown off its all-new Swift for the first time, with the new supermini going on sale in Japan tomorrow. We Europeans will have to wait a bit longer though - the Euro-Swift won't be full revealed until the Geneva Motor Show in March, although our cars will look more or less identical to these JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) versions.
And it's all change for the Swift this time around. The outgoing model was, essentially, a thorough re-skin of the 2004 original, but with 5.3-million sales, Suzuki has decided it's worth investing in a new platform (shared with the larger Baleno) and some new tech.
The three-door version is a casualty of the renewal, though - it won't be made any more, but Suzuki has disguised the rear door handle of the five-door into the heavily stylised C-pillar to try and keep those (few) three-door fans happy.
The new Swift is also bigger, with an extra 20mm in the wheelbase, which should help to improve legroom in the back, always a criticism of the current model.
There will also be some seriously high-end technology available, including autonomous emergency braking, active cruise control and more. It's not yet known what will be standard and what will be optional, but Suzuki Ireland has a good reputation for including safety kit on its cars as standard.
On the engine front, the Swift will share its 1.0-litre turbo triple BoosterJet and its 1.2 four-cylinder petrol (with optional mild hybrid system) with the Baleno, but we'll have to wait for Geneva for a full technical run down.