Serious off-road custom Jimny appeared at Osaka Auto Messe 2024
A record 660 custom cars were gathered at the Osaka Auto Messe (OAM) 2024, held at Intex Osaka from 10-12 February 2024. From this event, we introduce one Suzuki Jimny that stood out with its yellow body color and significantly tilted display body.
Significant weight reduction was achieved
The Jimny on display at the booth of Showa Garage in Aichi Prefecture, renowned for customizing Suzuki vehicles such as the Jimny and Every, had a distinctly different aura from the other vehicles. Painted in a vivid yellow, different from the genuine kinetic yellow, the body was in a rather wild state, with the doors and rear gate removed.
Looking again at the various parts of the body, the first thing to do is to remove the doors and fit piped half doors. Also at the rear, the rear gate has been removed and replaced with a pipe door with spare tire holders. The front hood has also been replaced with a carbon fiber one, and one can imagine that the total weight of the body has been reduced considerably.
Instead, a full-scale roll cage has been installed inside the car, and the front and rear bumpers are also original Showa Garage pipes. And with pipe rock guards on the side sections and pipe wings installed along the wings, it is quite authentic.
The suspension has been lifted by 3 inches (approx. 7.5 cm) with the company’s original kit, which is complemented by a 1-inch body lift and 235/85R16 tires, which are more than 10 cm larger in diameter than stock, giving the car a very high-waisted appearance.
The interior also has a rugged atmosphere
With permission, I opened the doors (you can almost see them even without opening them) and checked out the interior, which, as mentioned above, is spartan with only a full-fledged roll cage and two Recaro full-bucket seats inside the car. There are no gates on the sides or even behind, giving the car an open feel like an old-school-covered Jimny.
“It’s not easy to customize a current model into such a serious competition vehicle, but we can make it this serious. It’s a lot of fun, as it’s also very drivable.”
Lately, the Jimny has had a strong image as a fashionable, outdoor-oriented minicar, but looking at these vehicles, it is clear that it has inherited authentic off-road DNA.
translated by DeepL