November 19, 2012

It's a bird … it's a plane … it's a bit of a stuff-up, actually

Lots of readers won't remember this 4WD, or blinked and it was already gone. Back in 1995 Suzuki showed a concept car based on the two-door Vitara. The crowds apparently loved it … or said they did. Buoyed by this reception, Suzuki put it into production and quickly found there was a big difference between what the crowds said and what they actually did: the X-90 was a huge flop and vanished after little more than a year. A few came to New Zealand and one was even given away by an off-road magazine. In its favour, the two seater had a fair amount of interior room, a nice T-section roof, and was mechanically identical to the Vitara-Escudo. The 1996 JLX shown here is still registered, with about 138,000 embarrassing kilometres under its ladder-frame chassis.

2 comments:

  1. What was the name of the Magazine (and issue)that gave one of these away
    -Don modelttowncarclub@yahoo.com

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    1. It was NZ4WD magazine in a competition that ran from its first issue in April 1996 and closed at the end of August. I recall it was won by a man in Dunedin. The reason I'm precise about the dates is that I have a copy of that first issue!

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