2005 Suzuki Reno First Drive

It’s a tough trick to sell cars in America. Look to the left and you’ve got a mega-automaker popping out little SUVs like pez candy bits; peer to the right and watch while like-minded competitors offer everything and a full massage if you buy their cars.

Buy our car and we’ll mow your lawn forever!
As if. Point is, many mid-to-small automaker has a secret, a fickle combination that works sometimes and doesn’t work at other times.

Suzuki is betting that value will work every time.
The 2005 Suzuki Reno – and 2005 Forenza Wagon – is a value-based example. Not price, mind you, but value in the features it offers and the quality of its build. Price alone makes cars look cheap, and no one wants to buy a cheap car. Value is good, especially when the value is in equipment and protected by a great warranty. Judging from the 25 percent or so up-tick in sales that Suzuki has enjoyed of late, it seems that value is turning into a smart wager.

But now for the hard part: to keep it going, and to transform the idea of Suzuki, carmaker, through new cars built to compete with the likes of Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai. It’s happening, thanks to an assist from the bankrupt Daewoo – who originally designed the Reno and Forenza – and the GM Daewoo Automotive Technologies plant, where the cars will be assembled. So far, so good: with more cars scheduled to come to these shores, and based on the success of the Forenza compact car, Suzuki is indeed in the process of giving their car company a name based on value and design, and it starts with the Reno and the Forenza.

Not with pez bits and low-down dirty deals.