Retrospective: Suzuki Vitara

It's the return of Retrospective, PetrolBlog's trawl through the filing cabinet to find the best of yesterday's press shots. You can expect lots of cheese, fashion disasters and some very, very appealing cars. But not necessarily all at the same time.

Following in the tyre marks of the Skoda Felicia, Citroën AX and Daewoo Nexia, this edition puts the evergreen Suzuki Vitara under the spotlight. So, put on your bucket hat and overalls, switch off your Friends VHS, put some Gloria Estafan on the CD player and enjoy these ’90s-tastic photos from yesteryear.


Truth be told, it's hard to know where to start with the Suzuki Vitara - these retro press shots are simply golden. So we'll start with the beach babes...

First we join them on the sand dunes, in classic Baywatch pose. It's clearly a windy day, as much is evident by the girl's struggle to keep her hair out of her eyes. Also look out for the chap with the incredibly small swimming trunks who is having to work very hard just to stop the wafer-thin model from being blown over.



But good news was to come for our very own Ken and Barbie, as they manage to find a quiet place on the beach where they can lower the roof on their Vitara and lay their picnic rug down for a hard afternoon posing in the sun. Within hours of this photo being taken, our girl was snapped up for the next Special-K advertisement, leaving our chap with the incredibly small swimming trunks alone on the beach.



Thinks took a turn for the better once our girl received her first wage slip. Buoyed by her newfound wealth, our girl treated her man to a slap-up meal at the only place to be seen on a Friday evening, Chiquito. Here they spent many an hour admiring their new Suzuki Vitara 4U hardtop, only for their joy to be cut short by the security chap complaining about the illegally parked Vitara...



So they departed, much to the annoyance of the two ‘unlucky in love’ ladies who, despite eyeing up our man all evening, had to watch as he left with his Special-K girl.



Our couple were soon back the next day, still intent on illegally parking their new soft-top Suzuki Vitara at the marina whilst modelling their new range of swimwear. Don't they make a lovely couple? And don't you wish you could get away with wearing such skimpy swimwear?





Moving on from our beach babes, check out these incredibly cool people in an incredibly uncool Vitara. We're not sure what's worse - the three-spoke alloy wheels or the unfortunate bodykit. It's little wonder the models took to wearing all-black - they promptly made their escape from the Vitara under the cover of darkness.





Ah, this is a bit more like it. A Suzuki Vitara 5-door estate demands an altogether more grown-up press photo. This one has it all - the tight family unit, the ill-fitting home catalogue fashion-ware, the lake, the fallen leaves and the classic ‘C&A point’. And the dog - every family press shot needs a dog. Just a shame it looks so miserable.



And finally, what car should you turn up in at the ambassador's reception? A Bentley is so obvious. Take a leaf out of a young looking Sian Lloyd and Cheltenham's best Steven Siegel impersonator and borrow your friend's 1.6-litre Suzuki Vitara JLX SE 5-door estate. It's the Ferrero Rocher of cars.