By Ian Wright
You may be shocked to learn that a Suzuki Samurai, the famously tiny and small 4x4 that landed in the US in the mid 1980s, sold recently for over $25,000. In fact, at the end of 2025, people appeared to have been happy to pay over $15,000 for a vehicle that made 63 horsepower and 74-lb-ft of torque when new, and famously got an "unacceptable" safety rating from Consumer Reports when a test car rolled over in normal driving conditions.
It left the US in 1995, but, in its ten years in the US, the Samurai developed a cult following because it was actually a brilliant yet cheap little off-road vehicle.
The Suzuki Samurai Resurgance
People paying what seems like a lot for Suzuki Samurai models doesn't appear to be just a few exceptions on auction sites. Elsewhere, we are seeing the reported average sale price of a Samurai to be $13,508, with highs over $20,000. Of course, there are cheap ones out there for those wanting to resurrect a basket case, but we're seeing far from ideal examples selling for more than other off-roaders of the same era. The ones people are paying good money for tend to be excellent condition originals, heavily refreshed examples, and most often, modified for heavy off-road use.
This makes a lot of sense in an era where buying an off-road ready truck or SUV is expensive, and they tend to be technology heavy. It's fair to ask "If the computer is managing your SUV's traction while you go down a slippery hill, are you really off-roading?" And, if you want simplicity, it doesn't get more simple than a Suzuki Sumarai. To the point where, a year before the Samurai stopped being sold in the US, Suzuki stopped putting in rear seats so it didn't have to meet new seatbelt regulations.
Off-Road Prowess
The recipe for the Samurai, known as the Jimny in other markets, is simple. A small engine, all-wheel drive, some seats, a manual transmission, a steering wheel, manual-locking front hubs as standard, and costing just two-thirds the price of a Jeep. With a set of half-decent off-road tires to replace the standard road tires, the Samurai went from being a danger to everyone on the road to an absolute warrior off-road.
Suzuki Samurai Cheat Sheet:
- Sold in the US between 1986 and 1995
- Sold only as a three-door in the US
- Four-wheel-drive and locking front hubs were standard
- 1.3-liter four-cylinder engine made 63 hp
- Roughly 47,000 Samurais were sold in its first year in the States, outselling the Jeep Wrangler
- A 1.6 Liter Suzuki engine swap is a common upgrade by enthusiasts
When you break it down, the Samurai is small, light, and incredibly maneuverable. Small and light is, indeed, something that often gets overlooked when it comes to off-roading – particularly in America where big engines, a big chassis, and brute force has been normalized. This writer and their V8-swapped Series II Land Rover learned that lesson years ago when a Suzuki Samurai went places I couldn't follow – mainly through small, tight gaps between trees, then followed me through mud, into deep bomb holes, and up long slippery banks.
A better story, though, is how, in 2007, two Jeep Wrangler Unlimited models claimed the record for reaching the highest altitude ever reached by a four-wheeled vehicle. The professional team with factory-spec Jeeps climbed 21,804 feet to the top of Ojos del Salado in Chile, the second-highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere. According to legend, the team left a sign saying "Jeep Parking Only—all others don't make it up here, anyway." Not long after, two 4x4 enthusiasts from Chile, Gonzalo Bravo and Eduardo Canales, drove a single modified 1986 Suzuki Samurai up the same volcano to reach 21,942 feet.
According to legend, the Chillean team brought Jeep's sign back with them as a souvenir. While both records were certified by Guinness, the story about bringing the sign back wasn't. It took a Mercedes Unimog, which is a giant commercial and military truck, to get any higher up the volcano before Porsche unleashed Edith, a purpose-built Porsche 911 Carrera 4S.
A Surprise US Success
When Suzuki sent the Samurai to the US, it went the route of a slow rollout, starting with dealerships in California, Florida, and Georgia. Suzuki had a strategy – it realized Americans like to customize their off-road vehicles, and sent them over with a whole catalog of accessories to add to the little SUV. While it's considered a niche off-road vehicle now, in 1987 the Samurai outsold the Jeep Wrangler, but sales slowed dramatically after the Consumer Reports débâcle.
Some Samurai enthusiast's inner monologue will be screaming at this point, as it hasn't been mentioned so far that the Samurai was around long before it came to the US, and is still around now in other markets. It started off as the HopeStar ON360, built by Hope Motor Company in Japan before the company was bought by Suzuki. It became a Suzuki branded vehicle in 1970 as the LJ10 (Light Jeep 10), which is about as on the nose as a name can get.
Upgraded versions of the LJ went to the Australian market, and somewhere along the line it got the name Jimny attached. There are a few legends as to how Suzuki arrived at the name Jimny, but the most likely comes from a Japanese language linguistic adaptation from the word Jeepney, originating from the Philippines. A Jeepney is, traditionally, a military surplus Jeep that's been turned into public transport – as in a bus. The 'ney' part of Jeepney comes from the US pre-WWII slang word jitney for a taxi van, which is itself an old word for a nickel and the fare cost before they became known as dollar vans at the end of the 20th century.
Sources: Bring A Trailer, Suzuki, J.D. Power, Motortrend, and Hagerty.
Read the full article on CarBuzz
This article originally appeared on CarBuzz and is republished here with permission.
