Suzuki Cappuccino

Suzuki Cappuccino: the pocket-sized rear-driver

A proper sports car shrunk in the wash

The Cappuccino is one of the great what-were-they-thinking moments of the early nineties, and I mean that as a compliment. Suzuki built it from 1991 to 1998 as a kei-class roadster, which drops it into the same tiny weight class as the Honda Beat and the Autozam AZ-1. Where those two went mid-engined, the Cappuccino kept a front engine and rear-wheel drive. The engine sits behind the front axle line, so it is really a front-mid layout, and Suzuki claimed close to a 50:50 split with both seats occupied. Drive one and you feel it.

Kei rules are the whole story here. Every kei performance car of the era ran a 660cc turbo triple and bumped into the gentleman's 64 PS power cap, so on paper the Cappuccino makes the same as a Beat. What matters is the weight. It comes in around 700kg, with curb figures usually quoted near 725kg, so those 64 horses go a very long way. Early EA11R cars use the F6A engine with a cast-iron block and a timing belt. From 1995 the EA21R switched to the K6A, which has an aluminium block and a timing chain. Both feel quick and darty in a way the numbers never explain.

The roof is the party trick. You can run it as a closed coupe or pull a single panel for a targa look. Take everything off and it becomes a full open roadster. The panels stow in the boot, though fair warning, they eat nearly all of your luggage space when they are in there.

If the shape looks familiar, the Cappuccino turns up in Initial D, where an EA11R gets driven hard by a rally man for the Akiyama camp, and that exposure did a lot to spread the cult following it has today. These things have a devoted worldwide fanbase now, and prices have crept up to match.

So why buy one. You get honest rear-drive sports-car handling in a car roughly the size of a postage stamp, and it does it for cheap-to-run money. The grin factor is enormous and completely out of proportion to the speed. This is the definition of slow-car-fast, and on a tight back road it will happily embarrass things with triple the power.

Now the sensible bit. Rust is the big killer. These are thirty-year-old cars and they are small, so rot in the sills and floors, plus tired roof seals, can turn a bargain into a money pit. Check the health of the little turbo triple, listen for a smoky or lazy turbo, and on the belt-driven EA11R make sure the timing belt has genuinely been done. Watch for the usual kei neglect and for hard mods thrown on cheap, because a boosted engine that has been leaned on tells its own story. Parts can be fiddly to source outside Japan, so factor that in before you commit. A rust-free honest car beats a cheap rotten project every single time.