Japanese Tuner Infuses the Suzuki Jimny with ‘90s Nostalgia

• A segment of Japanese tuning culture loves dressing the tiny Suzuki Jimny up as other trucks, and the latest rendition is awesome.
• It has been lowered and fitted with boxy parts to give off the aura of a 1990s GMC Typhoon.
• If anything, this just makes us want a U.S.-spec Jimny more.

Most Japanese tuners have a well-established playbook: lower, faster, bigger wheels, exhaust pipe the size of a WWII howitzer, and crank up the boost. However, there’s a whole subculture that’s a bit more quirky, much of it focused around turning tiny JDM trucks and vans into vehicles that ape those found overseas.

So, you get stuff like DAMD’s rally-style versions of the Suzuki Jimny, one like a little Delta Integrale, one a boxy Renault 5 cosplay. It’s huge fun in a small package, a Halloween costume for your car.

C.L. Link

Here’s the latest one, which again takes the Jimny and lets it play dress-up. In this case, the inspiration is the 1992–1993 GMC Typhoon, the SUV follow-on from the original GMC Syclone high-performance pickup truck.

The treatment includes increased boxification of the already square Jimny, with a new front end incorporating rectangular headlights and flared bodywork. The suspension is lowered one inch on a combination of Eibach springs and Bilstein dampers, and if the wheels look pretty huge, that’s just an optical trick because of how small this little truck is. They’re actually only 16s.

The work here is done by a Hiroshima-based tuner called C.L. Link. The company specializes in off-road prepping the Jimny and also the Toyota Land Cruiser, from retro-look grilles and bumpers to lift kits that pass Japan’s strict shaken road safety inspections. C.L.’s flagship build is called the CL20-II, and it’s like an overlanding rig for ants, endlessly charming as if plucked from a Richard Scarry book.

Aaron Kiley|Car and Driver

The Typhoon-lookalike is a collaboration with Ryo Ishikawa, a designer who has founded several Japanese fashion brands. Ishikawa does various creative products, and this one leans hard into the 1990s nostalgia.

Again, it’s a bit of a shame that the Jimny isn’t sold here in some limited quantities, especially as you can buy them just south of the border in Mexico. This GMC-tribute trucklet probably wouldn’t be the best choice for a Texas highway, but it sure would be fun for bombing around some backroads and taking to a cars and coffee event.

Perhaps some U.S. tuners could borrow the central idea here, and start turning the Ford Maverick into a little 1980s F-150, or transform a Hyundai Venue into a miniature K5 Blazer. A little more fun on the road would be a nice break from every upgrade seeming to need to project more aggression.

Related Stories

➡️ Skip the lot. Let Car and Driver help you find your next car.

Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden era of Japanese sport-compact performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels.

Source: www.caranddriver.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.