My second full day in Tokyo was marked with exceedingly poor weather. While I had arrived late enough to miss Cyclone Hagibis, Japan caught the tail end of another one which led to more high winds and torrential downpours in Tokyo. Unwilling to be stuck in my room, I went to do some sight-seeing and found my umbrella turned into twisted wreckage within five minutes. So I took a page out of William Stopford’s playbook and headed into a parking garage to get out of the rain for a few minutes and keep walking in the direction I was heading anyway figuring I’d exit at the other end. However, that turned into a fortuitous detour as I spotted this wholly unfamiliar Chevrolet.
Well, wholly unfamiliar as a Chevy anyway, otherwise to most it’ll look like any other Japanese Kei Car, and to those more in the know it’s a rebadged Suzuki Wagon R, one of the more famous of the bunch. But where it differs is that Kei cars are limited in displacement (660cc) and power (50hp for normally aspirated and 64hp for the turbocharged version of Wagon R), which the Suzuki adheres to. However, in the grand tradition of Chevrolet where more is always better even if in this case it ends up pushing it well out of the Kei car class, it’s powered by a 1.3l 4-cylinder producing 88hp, a comfortable 38% more than the most powerful Wagon R! Like an extra inning of baseball, another hot dog, or an additional slice of apple pie, nothing could be more American.
Wearing chunky little alloys and a minimalistic little lower bodykit very reminiscent of the Toyota/Scion xB’s but a fairly massive rear wing, it perhaps could be looked at as a missed opportunity for Chevy to not have sold this in other places. From what I understand Suzuki actually sold these for GM in Japan but since the Wagon R was also sold as the Opel Agila in Europe that means that a left hand drive version exists and could have been brought to North America, in theory at least.
Kei cars do look at little odd at first but the Chevy cues (at least what’s left of them, i.e. the badge and chrome strip on the split grille) are there, this front would have fit right in with a showroom full of Cobalts for example. While it might not fly in Detroit proper, perhaps in some other metro areas that are semi-disposed favorably towards GM (or other American badged vehicles) such as Chicago, Atlanta, or Phoenix it could have had a chance.
Check out the big “Mark of Excellence” at the lower right of the tailgate! I’m guessing that this is a 2008 but it could be several other model years as well, these were offered for almost half a decade or so in Japan and while I didn’t see any others, surely they are around, although the larger engine puts them in a different class than the Suzuki itself. As with almost all cars I saw, it too was virtually spotless.
My aunt in Germany actually had an Opel Agila and called it “das Raumwunder” (translated to “the space wonder”), having to do with how spacious it was inside; If you’ve ever actually been in a Scion xB you’ll know what that means relative to the exterior dimensions. Of course the corollary to the small size externally is a relatively short wheelbase translating to a somewhat choppy ride and not really excelling at high speed, long distance interstate travel. But with 88hp and this size, zipping around town or for a quick commute, this is ideal with excellent visibility, cargo capacity, parkability and general space utilization far better than any other type of vehicle if all aspects need to exist in the same package.
My interior shot is marginal at best but there are two seats in front, no intrusive center console and all the necessary controls up on the dash. And another two seats in back. Note the column shifter for the automatic in this one as well for all the comforts of the land of the free and the home of the brave. Just like in your Silverado 3500HD Dually, simply think of this as its preemie little brother…From little acorns and all that.
For some unknown reason the gear lever positioning is something that always interests me. Probably because I grew up in a place where a column gearshift was synonimous with American (i.e. luxury) cars, and at a time when most European cars had already floor shift. Well, anyway, a column shift in a car a small as this is totally weird for me.
With two doors on each side this must be, like the Agila, a Wagon R+ variant as the Wagon R itself only had one door on the offside, two on the nearside.
So what’s the point? Not of the car, but of the branding. Why not just sell this as a Suzuki? I believe Japan has lots of dealer channels for minor variations of similar cars but this seems like it wouldn’t really benefit either Suzuki or a Chevrolet and just add costs for branding, sales collateral etc. But it’s not a rhetorical question … I’m really curious what the intent was.
Seems like a Scion xB but without any of its charm….
The JDM Toyota BB also had a bench seat the US model never got.
A lot of these Suzukrolets have washed up here in Aotearoa used, theres another one you havent tripped over yet called Cruz, though if youre in Japan or NZ no doubt you will, not really obscure rebadges if you did a post on all the stuff around the world rebadged Chevrolet it would be an eye opener for many,
I think you made a typo, the Chevy Cruze is rebadged Daewoo Lacetti sold in the US and several workd markets. There was also another Daewoo sold as a Chevrolet in Canada, which featured in CC
Before the Cruze we all know, there was a tiny Holden Cruze which was a rebadged little Suzuki SUV-let thingy. Maybe this was badged as a Chevy somewhere, and that’s what Bryce has seen.
Can’t edit, but I was going to add that it was bigger than a kei but still small. BTW, what’s with the randomly-disappearing edit function?
Just found one today — will write up a short post on it. Thanks for pointing this one out, guys.
I prefer my Suzuki Wagon R with this Chevy grille, which works best with the 3 door Kei car. Unfortunately these are too niche to justify the cost of US certification
Now that I DO like! New hood and fenders too, but they’d match the boxy shape beautifully.
The Chevrolet MW was based on the Suzuki Wagon R Solio, which came with 1.0-1.3 engines and was an updated version of the model known elsewhere as the Wagon R+ or Agila. The Wagon R was the kei model, the Solio slightly wider and offering larger engines as sort of a smaller answer to the Toyota bB and Nissan Cube. Both the MW and Solio were offered side-by-side on Suzuki’s site, which handled the MW and the Chevrolet Cruze (not the global Cruze, but the model that went to Aus at the first Holden Cruze, a restyled Suzuki Ignis). An odd arrangement.
It’s impossible to edit my comment..??
Anyway I was going to add that the MW was seemingly sold from September 2000 until December 2010.
Thanks, it was a very confusing car to research as there is conflicting information out there. But I didn’t want to not post it, it was too interesting.
I do see these around and wonder why. Still doesn’t make that much sense, but then the “global Chevrolets” rarely do.
I never would have guessed this existed.
Of the (many) things that’s odd about this are the badges. The “Chevrolet” badge looks like it’s taken off of a Lumina APV, but the “MW” badge is a completely different style. They couldn’t make the two of them match?
And maybe MW is really a really short way of abbreviating “RauMWunder”?
Not surprisingly, I have had a soft spot in my heart for the Wagon R+. If I lived in Austria, it’s what I would quite likely be driving.