The rugged little Suzuki Jimny, briefly sold in the U.S. as the Suzuki Samurai, was strictly offered as a two door since its introduction in 1970. Suzuki introduced a four-door in some markets like India, South Africa, and Australia in 2023, and Suzuki finally opened the order books for Japanese-market four-door Jimnys on January 30. It was an instant hit, and the company received so many orders that it had to suspend all further orders after being open for just four days. There were around 50,000 orders placed, but the sole manufacturing plant that produces four-door Jimnys can only produce 1,200 units per month so those 50,000 orders back up production for the next 3.5 years.
When the Suzuki Jimny was redesigned in 2018 to look like the adorably rugged offspring of a Jeep Wrangler and a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen, the internet went berserk for it. It managed to combine a cute and likeable face with enough off-road machismo to draw affection from all types of people – CarWow video presenter Matt Watson, who has driven hundreds of incredible cars, even bought one for himself.
The three-door Jimny is a tiny little truck that has compromised ergonomics, but adding two more doors makes it significantly more appealing to a wider audience, much like the Wrangler’s trajectory once Jeep started selling four-door Wranglers. Suzuki Japan issued an apology and explanation on its website, roughly saying, “The Jimny Nomad has been very well received by many customers and orders have been placed significantly more than the production capacity. Therefore we will suspend orders for the time being.” The sole plant that produces the four-door Jimny Nomade is Suzuki’s Gurugram plant in India, and this plant produces all the Jimny Nomades that get exported to countries including Latin America, South Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and now Japan.
The Jimny Nomade comes standard with part-time four-wheel-drive with a low-speed transfer case, and it’s powered by the same 1.5-liter I4 that produces 103 horsepower and 99 pound-feet of torque as the two-door. It’s offered with your choice between either a five-speed manual transmission or, shockingly, a four-speed automatic, and its base price in Japan is 2,651,000 Japanese yen, which converts to about $17,200. The four-door Jimny Nomade costs about $4,500 more than the cheapest two-door Jimny Sierra in Japan.
Autocar India clocked a four-door Jimny’s 0-to-62 mph time at a pretty friggin’ slow 14.59 seconds. Don’t worry about how slow it will be on U.S. roads, though, since there are no plans to bring it to the U.S. market. The Jimny Nomade is an adorable, capable, cheap, and now practical little truck that has proven to be very desirable. If Suzuki can increase production and federalize the Jimny Nomade, it would sell like proverbial hotcakes. Until then, I will be busy drooling over Mexican market Jimnys that I occasionally spot on LA roads.
