The fourth–generation Suzuki Jimny: cheap, honest, capable, rugged, cute, and seemingly everyone wants one. That makes me feel stupid, because I don't understand its charm—at all. All off–roaders look the same to me, and trying to sell the Jimny's rugged capabilities to someone in a concrete jungle like me is not just barking up the wrong tree; they'd be in the wrong forest entirely. I can appreciate a cheap, simple, yet capable tool for a job, sure, but I can't help but to feel a tad sad that those basic qualities are rare enough nowadays to become selling points in this industry.
Style by Haro_GT: Monster SPORT TOUGH STYLE Jimny
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Style by tsubo_ms-14s: KZFxC YH Moty’s Jimny 2023
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And if I don't even understand its appeal in the real world where the Jimny does its best work, imagine the mental Jimnastics I'd have to go through to like it in a game that mostly features smooth, wide racetracks with long straights to facilitate racing GT3 and LMP1 cars. It sounds about as miserable as my bad pun, doesn't it?
Because of its extremely short and close 1st and 2nd gears primarily used for climbing steep inclines and digging itself out of mud, the Jimny has a shockingly explosive launch off the line in tandem with its 4WD system; we're talking 0–60 times of a very respectable 5.6 seconds... if measured in km/h. Past 52km/h, 3rd gear has to get involved, and that's when the pain and agony really sets in, as it'd take roughly another 10 whole seconds before the Jimny gasps and wheezes its way to triple digit speeds. I very strongly recommend readying up a Spotify playlist, or just creating your own music playlist on a USB drive and hooking it up to your PlayStation before hopping into a Jimny, strictly as aid to stay awake, because the turbocharged 3 cylinder Kei engine isn't particularly charismatic or informative in the grunts and groans it drones out in the lethargic crawl to the next corner, hyperventilating as it approaches its 7,200rpm rev limit. It thus appreciates some short shifting, but 3rd, 4th, and 5th are all so far apart from each other that there is merit in holding onto a lower gear for awhile even after the engine starts to noticeably teeter off a cliff at 6,7. Because of its oddly spaced gears, I can't really pinpoint any particular shift point for the Jimny; it all depends on the corner and which gear the car's in. Generally speaking, I shift the car earlier the higher the gears go. Of particular note is that ultra annoying big gap between 4th and 3rd, which will require 4th gear to dip to around 4,5—well below where the engine makes usable power and notable noise—before the car can shift down into 3rd. This counterintuitive gap means that I'd probably have blown up many a R06A engine on downshifts if engine damage was simulated in GT7, and it's gut wrenching to accidentally do every time, even if engine abuse sadly seems to be the way to get the shortest braking distances in this game.
Once, or IF the Jimny actually gets to a corner, that's when things somehow get worse. Unlike the vast majority of rally cars in GT7 that come with a more flexible AWD system for a curving road, the Jimny instead has a part–time 4WD system with a transfer case to traverse terrain and obstacles that would make the aforementioned cars leak their oil pans. Unfortunately, said 4WD system is forced on at all times in this game, which just results in comical understeer on a paved racetrack. In fact, the only other car I can compare the Jimny to in terms of driving feel is the 1945 Jeep Willys MB, in that both these cars are inherently understeery thanks to their 4WD systems, making them prone to feeling like being railroaded on a paved racetrack. With live axles also come extremely limited camber angle on the wheels to help dig grip out of tarmac, and as a result, these cars stop much better than they turn, and will require drivers to have mostly eased off the middle pedal before they're willing to hunt an apex. Because of this relatively low lateral load for their grip level, the cars don't roll that much when turned, which can give off a sense of tautness belying their soft springs when the tyres have grip, but suddenly become utterly helpless when said grip is lost. Hustling a Jimny around a racetrack then, involves protecting the heavily laden front tyres as though a critically endangered species of wildlife, making sure never to overwhelm them, lest the entire car seize up via the 4WD transfer case acting as a locked differential, costing the driver enough momentum to move mountains. Easier said than done with only 175mm tyres all four corners, Comfort Medium compound by default. In the wet, this transforms the steering wheel into some sort of an alien rotary massage device, as it will judder and clatter non stop with every minute request to redirect the car, making it an utterly miserable chore to wade through a wet track in spite the advantage on paper AWD confers the Jimny.
It may sound horrible to drive thus far, but the Jimny does have some traits of a fun little sports car, shocking as it is for me to write this. While the front tyres overwhelm easily, deliberately timing brake pedal abuse while the front tyres are turned and hooked up can very quickly send the short wheelbase Jimny into a slide from the sudden weight shift of its 1,030kg (2,271lbs) body stilted up 205mm (8.07in) above the ground, short–lived said slide may be from the lack of power to hold it. This makes the Jimny stupidly fun to chuck into tight corners that involve just a short, sharp dab of the brakes, such as The Chicane of Goodwood, and because that's the quickest way to actually get through those sections, it really challenges the driver to be an efficient hooligan!
Of course, power is at a premium as well, and like a good sports car, the Jimny heavily emphasises momentum driving. I had initially thought that a 63HP (47kW) car that struggles to get past 120km/h (75mph) would be too slow to race, but because the Jimny gets devoured alive by atmospheric air, it punches out a veritable black hole in its wake even at the meek speeds it does, which very noticeably sucks in trailing cars, be they similarly bone stock Jimnys, and it has just enough power and gears to take advantage of this to make one–make racing viable, unlike the Jeep and Himedic. Couple this with its somewhat idiosyncratic needs, along with heavy emphasis on momentum, and the end result is a car that lends itself to pretty ridiculous racing, keeping the pack close together while simultaneously putting a magnifying glass over the drivers' skill and adaptability. Equip the startlingly grippy dirt or snow tyres on this car, and it suddenly becomes a gargantuan test in keeping the steering wheel smooth, because all that grip means that simply turning the wheel too quickly can bust out the rear end of the car, costing crucial momentum, a stark contrast to how it handles on paved surfaces with its default Comfort Medium tyres.
I haven't understood the Jimny in real life where it does its best work, and I hadn't expected to like it in Gran Turismo 7, but the Jimny very pleasantly surprised this city boy in the virtual world, and while I still feel like I'm completely misunderstanding its intent in the real world by misusing it in a racing video game, I've still somehow come to like and respect it a fair bit all the same. Heck, most of the things I wish were better in my time with the Jimny weren't even the Jimny's fault; they were the fault of the game—I wish dirt tyres weren't so ridiculously grippy in this game, because they feel like racing items. I wish they came in different grades and hardness levels just like road tyres, allowing the Jimny to actually hold a slide under its own power on a loose surface. I also wish there were more tiny tracks like Horse Thief Mile in the game to really let cars of the Jimny's power level really shine and come alive on. It's a sleeper to me as it is now, but I have a very strong feeling that it's going to get a spicy engine swap in the near future to make it a truly compelling bargain buy. In the meantime, though, that itch can only be somewhat satiated by taking a listen to a Jimny on an aftermarket exhaust make bloody Countach noises.
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