Hiroyuki Yonezawa

Roads only a Jimny can drive

The main target of the fourth-generation Jimny was professional users: people who cannot get to work, or drive those roads, without a Jimny, such as forestry cooperatives, hunters, and people who deliver goods to areas with deep snow where plowing lags behind. Yonezawa names strengthening the frame as the biggest key to raising on-road comfort; the team built development vehicles from the previous model and set targets before starting the design. The frame is an almost entirely new design, with a different shape and different weld points, and uses high-tensile steel to combine crash safety, rigidity and weight reduction. A stronger frame raised the rigidity of the mounting points and widened the range for suspension tuning.