Cheap to Buy, Cheap to Run

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Remember when cars didn’t have touch screens, menus, complicated drive trains and endless tech? This Suzuki Alto has none of that. Sure it’s slow, yes it’s basic. And true, safety wasn’t a big consideration. But if you’re not in a hurry, like the idea of servicing your own car and consider a car perfectly safe if it hasn’t crashed after 31 years of trundling around NZ roads, then this car is for you.

With 657cc of three cylinder grunt and a 3 speed auto transmission this 1995 Suzuki Alto won’t win any drag races. The lack of air conditioning won’t keep you cool this summer but the manual windows allow the fresh air to cool you organically. It does, however, have a heater, a radio/cassette player, a rear wiper and, that’s about it. To some that will sound like depravation, to others it’ll sound like freedom...and it’s less stuff to break.

And then there’s the colour – not grey, not silver, not white, but a pleasant shade of aqua-green; the colour of the sea and your grandmother’s curtains.

This 1995 Suzuki Alto is the car for a simple life. A car that isn’t listening to you. A car that can’t be remotely shut down by a reckless billionaire, or tell you when you’re going too fast, or too slow, or not straight enough. A car that rejects modernity in favour of simple practicality.

Would I buy it? No. I like my unreliable tech and climate control too much. There’s no hope for me. But you? Maybe there’s still hope for you. And it’s cheap (auction estimate $1000 - $2000) and uses little of that liquid they call petrol but is priced like champagne.

This car, that rejects our tech overlords, is being auctioned at Turners Dunedin. More details here.