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— Kris Ashton
The Suzuki Fronx debuted to little fanfare in mid-2025 and soon drew attention for all the wrong reasons, after ANCAP slapped a one-star rating on the light SUV due to retractor issues with the rear seatbelts. Suzuki immediately acknowledged the result, recalled affected vehicles, and pulled the Fronx from sale.
Now that it’s back on the market, however, the Open Road team thought it was time to evaluate the 2026 Suzuki Fronx (a portmanteau of ‘Frontier’ and ‘Next’) on its merits. How does it stack up against light SUV competitors? We put a Fronx through its paces to find out.
The 2026 Suzuki Fronx comes in a single model, the Hybrid GLX, for $29,990 before on road costs.
The 2026 Suzuki Fronx’s sleek exterior spearheads the new design language filtering into the Suzuki range, and the Fronx’s interior is similarly appealing. Seek a soft-touch surface on the dashboard, console and doors and you’ll seek in vain, but the aesthetics jibe – everything from the glossy piano black inserts to the ribbed seat upholstery – and it does get a faux leather steering wheel.
Ergonomics are another strong point, with well-padded and figure-hugging pews, a good driving position, instruments in easy reach, and physical buttons for many controls, including air conditioning, trip meters and the head-up display.
The central touchscreen is almost comically small in this age of infotainment panoramas, yet the icons are well ordered and there’s nothing unintuitive about the menus. Once again, it shows a touchscreen needn’t be the size of a billiard table if it’s designed sensibly. A wireless phone charger lurks in the fore section of the console and above it are a 12-volt socket and a USB-A port. There’s also a small centre armrest with a storage box and a lid that slides backwards and forwards.
In the second row there’s not a great deal of head room – I’m average height and only had a few centimetres clearance – but foot and leg room are very good, and the seats are spacious and comfortable. Rear passengers don’t get air conditioning vents (not uncommon in the light SUV segment), nor is there a fold-down armrest, and the only cup holders are in the door pockets. Back seat occupants do get one USB-A and one USB-C socket, plus a speaker on each side.
The cargo area amounts to 304 litres, which is far from terrible for the light SUV segment, and it’s quite versatile thanks to a removable panel that provides a second floor. Although the Suzuki Fronx is sold with a tyre repair kit, you can get a space saver spare as an extra-cost option – it will, of course, eat up quite a bit of boot space.
While it’s not lavishly equipped for the price, the 2026 Suzuki Fronx has inclusions where they count. Among these are 16-inch polished alloy wheels, keyless entry and start, a head-up display, 360-degree view camera, 9.0-inch infotainment screen, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a wireless charger, six-speaker audio, front seats with leather accents and heaters, and single-zone climate control air conditioning.
The Fronx comes standard with Arctic White or Bluish Black paint, while premium metallic colours cost $745 (single tone) or $1345 (two tone). The pictured vehicle has a Lucent Orange paint with a Bluish Black roof.
As mentioned above, ANCAP crash-tested the Suzuki Fronx in 2025 and found poor outcomes for rear passengers, especially children, resulting in a one-star rating. The major issue relating to the seatbelts has since been rectified but the Fronx has not yet been retested and the one-star rating remains current.
The 2026 Suzuki Fronx is not short on safety systems, with the equipment list including six airbags, front and rear parking sensors, a reversing camera, adaptive cruise control, lane keeping assistance, lane departure warning, rear cross traffic alert, an advanced autonomous emergency braking system, blind spot monitor, weaving alert and high beam assistance.
Under the 2026 Suzuki Fronx’s bonnet is a 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine. It’s paired with a 12-volt starter generator designed to provide assistance during acceleration and reduce fuel consumption. A six-speed auto transmission shifts the cogs and drive is through the front wheels.
Total output is a modest 76kW and 137Nm, while combined fuel consumption is a claimed 4.9L/100km.
In a time when manufacturers are making cars more complicated, the 2026 Suzuki Fronx offers refreshing simplicity. Press a button to unlock the doors, press a button to start the car, traditional gear selector, indicator on the right, windscreen wipers on the left. Get in, go, know where everything is at a glance because it’s a marked physical switch on the dashboard, not an icon buried in a labyrinth of menus.
Throttle response from a standing start is good and the powertrain offers much more pep than the on-paper figures suggest. But compared to other modern examples, the hybrid system is noisy and unpredictable.
The main problem is you never quite know what you’re going to get when you put your foot down. Sometimes it’s a thrashy jump to high revs with an accompanying glut of power, at other times there’s an odd train-like chugging as it takes its time climbing the rev range. Most hybrid systems are now almost undetectable as they go about their business, so the Fronx’s less-than-tuneful mayhem ages it instantly.
Set that aside, however, and the Suzuki Fronx is kind of fun. Like most Suzukis, it’s light on its feet (kerb weight is just 1065kg) and the firmish suspension tune keeps it in check during cornering, notwithstanding a touch of body roll. The bolstered seats provide a sporty feel, and a small turning circle means it’s manoeuvrable in carparks and tight street situations. Even the stop/start fuel saving system isn’t a deal-breaker – it’s one of the quickest and least frustrating examples of the technology on the market.
Which brings us to fuel consumption. The published combined figure for the Suzuki Fronx is 4.9L/100km, but that’s based on the notoriously unreliable New European Driving Cycle (NEDC). Over 120km of suburban driving, we saw 8.7L/100km – more highway mileage would push that figure lower, of course, but 4.9L/100km seems fanciful.
Other irks and quirks? Remarkably few. The gearstick is Suzuki’s usual silly design with manual selection right at the bottom of the shift pattern, the rear camera image sometimes takes a second or two to appear after you put the car in reverse, and the head-up display is not for OCD types, as the projection is slightly off centre. And that’s about it, really – keeping things simple has its benefits.
While its hybrid drivetrain isn’t going to win any awards for quietness or refinement, the 2026 Suzuki Fronx’s fun-loving character and decent value for money make it a legitimate contender in the light SUV space.
