The Suzuki APV is a 5-door van / 5-door panel van / 2-door Pickup truck / pickup from Suzuki, built from 2004 to 2009, in the decade of stability control, dual-clutch gearboxes and the first serious hybrids. Under the bonnet: Petrol engine. Hisanori Matsushima, Tsutomu Musashiya and Takamitsu Fukuda drew it. The total made was 101,200.
Where it came from
The Suzuki APV is a minivan/light commercial vehicle designed by Suzuki in Japan and manufactured in Indonesia by Suzuki Indomobil Motor. The abbreviation "APV" is short for All Purpose Vehicle. It is powered by either 1.5 liter or 1.6 liter inline-four G series engine delivering 92–105 PS (91–104 hp; 68–77 kW).
The pickup truck version is called Suzuki Mega Carry in Indonesia, Super Carry Pro in Vietnam and APV Pickup elsewhere. It was discontinued in February 2019 in favour of the international version of the Carry 1.5. The APV was exported from Indonesia in April 2005 to more than 100 countries in Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Middle East, South Asia, North Africa and Oceania. Suzuki invested JP¥ 11.5 billion to produce a targeted 70,000 units per year in Indonesia.
Under the skin
Power comes from Petrol engine; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. It weighs 1140 –. It shifts through a 5-speed Manual transmission / manual / 4-speed List of Aisin transmissions#Longitudinal / AW03-72LE Automatic transmission / automatic (APV only). The layout matters: the engine sits behind the driver and ahead of the rear axle, which puts the mass in the middle of the car and is why mid-engined cars change direction the way they do. The wheelbase is 2625 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
In context
Its family tree is legible: it took over from the Suzuki Carry#Plus / Suzuki Every Plus/Carry 1.3 / Suzuki Carry#Futura / Suzuki Carry Futura (upmarket van variants) / Mitsubishi Kuda (for Mitsubishi Maven); its successor was the Suzuki Carry#DC61T / Suzuki Carry 1.5 (for pickup truck) / Mitsubishi Xpander (for Mitsubishi Maven); assembly was at Bekasi, West Java (Tambun Plant. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Hyundai Tucson, the Ford Mustang, the Chrysler 300 — show what else the money bought that year. Nearby in the Suzuki catalogue sit the Suzuki XL-7 and the Suzuki Landy.