It's Mighty Boy! - Motor Manual 1985

Small, good fun and cheap!

This just may be the smallest ute ever sold in Australia. The tray looks as if it might be stretched just holding an Esky; the cab should bear a Do Not Enter sticker for people over 150 cm tall. It evokes humour in the streets because people just don’t believe it. In fact it’s a very good way of dispelling the black cloud that often descends in city traffic as drivers sit trapped in their tin and glass cocoons. One cannot maintain his/her rage in a situation like this. There’s this little yellow blob, maybe a little bigger than a Vespa motor scooter, with four wheels, two doors, and a hunched-over driver peering out from behind the glass. Behind him is something that looks a little bigger than an ashtray, its edges surrounded by some bent towel rail.

The Suzuki Mighty Boy is something a little different from the small Japanese vehicles we’re normally accustomed to. One gets the feeling that at no stage was anybody less than frivolous when this vehicle was being developed. To be sure, it doesn’t have any serious function other than transporting two people from one place to another at an absolute minimum cost, and then you wouldn’t want to be transporting them too fast, or too far.

It's Mighty Boy!
Motor Manual

October 1985

Words

Tim Britten (Editor)

Photos

David G. Segal

The brochures being produced by the Suzuki people in Japan show us something about how the company would like to think about the Mighty Boy.One shows the little Suzuki in various situations, interspersed with characters from Norman Rockwell paintings all looking slightly bemused/amused, and who would blame them because the culture shock of being transplanted from 1940s middle class America to 1980s Japan would be about as severe as you could get. We’re not sure if it’s all do do with Japan’s self-image today where the whole country appears to be aspiring to Rockwell’s romanticised view of post-war America, or whether the agency simply thought it an amusing graphic exercise, but it’s a change from the familiar Sean Connery/Paul Newman associations.

Local press and TV ads, complete with muscular arms protruding from the Mighty Boy’s side windows, continue the flippancy in Australia.So just what is this minuscule match-box, the mini-ute that currently holds the title of being the cheapest car on the Australian market?

Although first appearances may suggest it, the Mighty Boy is not simply a chopped version of the Hatch, or the shorty-to-be-released Alto. It does share mechanicals with both, and there are certain dimensional similarities, but it is basically an older body than the Alto, with a less sharply-raked bonnet and fewer aerodynamic aids like he hidden rain gutters found on the sedan. Certainly, there are no interchangeable panels.

Motive power comes from the same 543cc three cylinder four stroke which puts out 23 kW at 6000 rpm and drives though a four speed gearbox. With a weight of just 540 kg, this give the little beast a power/weight ratio of around 23 kg per kilowatt, which is not a figure guaranteed to induce potency. Probably wisely because one wouldn’t really want to hurl a Mighty Boy along at Autobahn speeds. From there, the specifications tell you you’re allowed to carry 400 kg (including driver and passenger) which brings the whole thing up to almost twice its unladen weight.

Standing alongside a Mighty Boy, or seeing one in traffic, it is difficult to believe a normal human being would fit comfortably inside. One almost expects the Suzuki to assume the shape of its wearer.

It thus almost comes as a surprise that a 185 cm Fram can be accommodated inside, even if the roof lining does seem a little close for comfort. Why, you can even most the seat back on its runners to the point where legroom compares with some of the less well-endowed lightweight sedans — and then you can lay the backrest down a little to help with the headroom and approximate a straight-arm driving position. All quite amazing, really, when you consider there are some sedans of much greater bulk that don’t do a great deal better in their attempts to keep the driver comfortable.

But the little Suzuki is still fairly basic, even if some of the home comforts such as a push-button radio and cloth covered seats are there. But one is prepared for that.Firing up the overhead cam three, it’s hard to believe anything that small would be capable of propelling a motorcar towards 120 km/h as promised by the speedometer, until you remember that the Japanese were selling such things as the 360cc Honda Scamps and Z coupes in the early seventies, and selling them in reasonably significant numbers. A big-bore powerplant then was the 600cc unit used in the performance version of the Scamp and the engine took up so much space that the spare tyre had to be taken from under the bonnet and underslung at the back of the car.

The Mighty Boy’s 543ccs actually idles pretty smoothly, with less noise and vibration than we used to get in the 360 twins. The shift for the four speed box (there’s a two speed auto available, too) is, as expected, light and easy, as is the clutch pedal offset to the left along with the other medals due to the close proximity of the front wheel arches.

The little ute doesn’t have any trouble getting away, and is obviously more torquey than the early-seventies 360s. It sounds more like a real engine, and doesn’t fall all that far behind when you’re racing from one red light to the next.But if its size might tempt you to be cheeky, aiming for gaps not available to larger cars, its just-over-pint-sized engine begs a little caution. That, plus the fact you don’t really like to think how 530 kgs would come off when bashed against something more substantial.

No, you drive this Suzuki with something of the defensiveness a motorcycle rider uses, because there are few accident situation where you likely to come off anything above second-best.

Around-town driving is obviously the Suzuki’s forte. The gearbox maybe could do with closer spacing between ratios, but the Mighty Boy progresses steadily nevertheless, demonstrating somewhat greater reserves of torque than the old Honda twins. The steering, as you’d imagine, is super-light and response up to sensible limits is quite acceptable. The ride, with MacPherson struts up front and leaves at the rear, is as you’d also imaging: fairly upsetting over decent bumps but relatively absorbent otherwise. With the limitations of performance, the Mighty Boy can be flung around because there’s simply not a lot of inertia to be overcome, and the relatively heavy mass of the driver is positioned almost equidistantly between the from and rear axles. The mass of the engine doesn’t make the same contribution as it does in a bigger car.Heading out onto the freeways and approaching the 100 km/h mark, the Mighty Boy has one feeling that the upper limbs are being approached because not only does the accelerator response start to taper off, but the door frames also start to flutter as the inside air pressure builds up to the point where the doors can’t contain it any longer. We’re told a downhill windup will see the speedo needle creep past the final 120 km/h calibration and here it’s probably best that the little thing doesn’t have a taco because the engine can certainly be felt revving. The overdrive fifth gear used in the Alto would e nice, but the feeling is that the Mighty Boy would only carry it on a flat road with a slight tailwind.

Interestingly, the Suzuki has a couple of tiny disc brakes up front to help bring all of this to a halt.

As for the utility of the little Suzuki; well, there’s only so much one can carry in a space just over a metre wide and significantly less than a metre deep. You’re not going to throw 500 house bricks aboard, and you’re certainly not going to carry one of your Aberdeen Angus yearlings to market. It’s best if you think of it as an open-air version of a normal car boot. Inside, behind the seats, there is a quite generous space where you can carry a couple of medium-size suitcases, or anything else not too large that you may want to tote around.

And what about fuel economy, you say? Well, during the week we had the Mighty Boy, we averaged 6.2 litres /100 kms, which gave you a range of approximately 400 km from the 27 litre tank. Just as well, for one would expect a vehicle that’s dirt cheap to buy should maintain some sort of consistency across the scale of operating economies.

MW Motors, Melbourne Suzuki importers, tells us there’s some difficulty having supply meet demand for this charismatic little vehicle, the low price obviously having a lot to do with ti, and says it may have to consider limiting sales to one Mighty Boy per person. What’s the next step? Well, we reckon a twin-engine Mighty Boy with 16 inch wheels and balloon tyres could be the logical follow-up to the ‘Bigfoot’ 4x4s that are crunching their way across America at the moment.

Fun fact:

The article above was republished in 'Best Buys' #13 during 1986. The content was the same, but the print quality was much cheaper and doesn't look as good on paper.

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