Safety and the Samurai: Fans Don’t Mind a Few Bumps
These drivers wave at each other on Pacific Coast Highway. They beep crossing paths down Torrey Pines Scenic Drive. They rub fenders on campuses from San Diego to Berkeley and call themselves Club Samurai.
Their bond is the Suzuki Samurai, a pug-nosed, four-wheel-drive dormouse, introduced in 1985, that California’s youthful and carefree have taken to their hearts and hot spots with a regional burst of public affection that hasn’t been seen since the first wine cooler.
“You drive around, especially with a girlfriend, and you get a lot of attention in that car,” enthuses one young and female owner. “I certainly don’t mind that.
“But I love my Samurai because it’s a great fun-time, beach-time, picnic-time kind of car and, well, real California life style.”
But last week, Consumers Union, publishers of Consumer Reports, which evaluates and rates everything from toasters to tractors, moved to close down those Samurai good times.
At a New York press conference, the Union bluntly condemned the enormously popular vehicle as a deadly dud prone to low-speed roll-overs.
The final verdict: A recommended recall of the Samurai with Suzuki reimbursing its full purchase price to about 150,000 American owners--including an estimated 60,000 California owner-disciples of the Samurai life style.
It was a shot heard around the world of sports-utility motoring. But is Club Samurai on the point of disbanding?
Nah, say its owners. To be totally true, some Southern Californians are conceding their willies and trading their Samurais. But the majority are saying that once married to this irrepressible young thing, a divorce is about as thinkable as drowning a puppy.
‘I’m Very Happy With It’
“I like the style, I like a convertible, I like the Suzuki Samurai,” said intermittent actor Russ Cole, 27, of Van Nuys. His vehicle, purchased 18 months ago, has been his beach buggy and mountain goat. “Trade it in? No, I’m very happy with it.”
La Crescenta gardener Dan Andrus, 22, carries skis to Mammoth and a mountain bike to the Santa Monica Mountains and beach gear to Zuma in his Samurai. Plus his gardening equipment.
“I like it a lot,” he said. “I like having a four-wheel-drive convertible that only cost $8,000 and is as happy on the freeways as it is mud running.”
Teresa Brown of Thousand Oaks, a 26-year-old public relations director for Hollywood Select Video, well remembers buying her Samurai.
“It wasn’t a real intelligent, thought-out purchase,” she said. “I fell in love with one in particular and two hours later I was driving it off the lot.
‘A Fun Car to Drive’
“It’s a really fun car to drive and when I’m in it I feel almost carefree and very Californian. If I’m driving around in a 1972 Gran Torino station wagon, well, I don’t consider that a fun car to drive.”
And there may be the essence of this little soldier called Samurai. It was never introduced to be taken seriously. It was advertised as Tonka and lollipops, a four-cylinder ladybug that puts light venture back into heavy traffic on the Ventura Freeway. It’s advertised slogan was a seduction: Never a dull moment.
Not incidentally, owning a Samurai implied honorary California citizenship. Even if you lived in Ames, Iowa.
Yet within hours of the Consumers Union press conference that some say came closer to a public execution--and despite quick votes of confidence on its design and stability by Brea-based Suzuki U.S., despite the emergency mailing of videotaped rebuttals to 209 dealers nationwide and the recommendation that they do not respond to media questions--the Samurai’s future did seem to be skidding.
“We have had a couple of customers come to us who were concerned and who wanted to trade out their (Samurai) vehicles,” said Bert Boeckmann, owner of Galpin Suzuki of Sepulveda. “One had had it just 60 days, the other had had it 90 days.
“We have not done our normal sales, but I can’t tell you what the (precise) effect is. It’s a little bit too early to read. I’ve talked to a couple of dealers and it looks like their sales . . . were down substantially.”
50% Loss Predicted
Boeckmann predicted that the eventual loss to Suzuki’s business could be “about 50%.”
Tony Pacheco, sales manager of Cerritos Suzuki, reported no turn-ins but “I’m sure this is going to hurt business, no two ways about it. I’ve had several calls from people wanting to know what’s going on here and is the Samurai safe.”
A South Bay dealer, who requested that he not be identified, reported a 40% drop in weekend sales of the Samurai.
And at least one owner, Reseda bank clerk Stacie Garbell, has decided to dump the Samurai she has owned since August.
“I have a girlfriend who also is selling hers,” Garbell said. “I still like the Samurai, but I have been looking at a (Honda) CRX and this safety thing is what made my final decision.”
Yet its lovers remain a legion.
No matter that its short wheelbase guaranteed a jouncing ride on anything lumpier than a pool table. Who cared that the Samurai was drafty with the center of gravity of a giraffe? For here was a happy-go-lucky, relatively unusual and absolutely cute vehicle in a transportation field that these days is somewhat short on individuality.
Then the accidents began.
According to federal statistics released by Consumers Union, there have been 44 roll-over accidents involving Samurais, resulting in 16 fatalities and 53 injuries.
In its own road tests, the Union equipped a Samurai with outriggers and training wheels and put it through its accident avoidance paces.
After sudden turns at under 40 miles an hour, according to videotapes, the Samurai lurched onto two wheels and began to capsize.
“It literally trips over its own feet,” said the group’s technical director, R. David Pittle.
Added David Berliner, assistant director of Consumers Union: “It’s not something where they can make an adjustment or put on some hardware in order to make a difference. As designed, the only solution is to take it off the market.”
Suzuki, he said, should also refund the original purchase price to all Samurai owners.
“To be quite honest, I wouldn’t consider it a commuter car,” Brown acknowledged. “I’ve never ridden in the back seat myself, but I’ve heard some groans of complaint from friends who are right there over the wheel.
Keeping It as a Second Car
“But it’s a great fun-time car . . . and I’ll keep it for as long as it runs. Then I’ll get it repaired and keep it as a second car.”
Unfortunately, say the experts, the driving limitations of the sport-utility Samurai were generally lost on those who bought the car for its aesthetics or as part of a youthful vogue.
“I think Suzuki’s mistake was in not marketing the Samurai as a ‘street legal ATV (All-Terrain Vehicle),’ ” explained Phil Berg, West Coast editor of Autoweek magazine. “That way there wouldn’t have been any problems . . . instead, they marketed it as a street vehicle.”
Countered owner Cole: “But they (Suzuki) give you warnings. There are yellow stickers right over the windshield and another in front of the driver that says . . . it’s not a sports car so don’t drive it like a sports car, keep it under certain speeds, watch tight turns, don’t take it on steep hillsides.”
So the Samurai’s major difficulty, he added, might be with owners who “just buy the car and think they can do anything with it.”
Insurance companies, however, had placed the Samurai in its high risk category even before Consumers Union stepped in.
Editor Berg said he knew of one company with an internal blacklist of cars ineligible for insurance. It included Ferrari, Jeep’s CJ series, Bronco II, Yugo, the Mitsubishi Montero, Pantera--and the Suzuki Samurai.
Insurance? Bad News
“It’s a car that (insurance) companies just don’t want to know about, and it’s not a market that we are out looking for,” said one insurance broker. “Comprehensive insurance on such a vehicle with a younger driver could be up to $4,000 a year . . . and with, say, standard four-year financing, you’d be paying $16,000 in insurance on a vehicle that only cost $8,000.”
Suzuki has yet to issue any detailed counterattack, but after a series of back-to-back meetings, said Ron Rogers, president of Rogers & Associates, the Century City public relations company that handles Suzuki, “there is a game plan.”
He criticized Consumers Union for not presenting any percentages with its accident figures, and for not drawing comparisons between the Samurai and “a number of other vehicles which have a higher incidence of roll-overs and fatalities.”
Rogers also said that Consumers Union, in presenting accident statistics, should have considered such variables as convertible construction (the Samurai is available in both convertible and hardtop versions) and the use of seat belts because “chances are they (accident victims) could very easily go flying out of the vehicle whether it was a Samurai or a Cadillac.
“That’s what we are looking at, and compiling now . . . but to come out and say we have a safe and stable vehicle doesn’t mean anything until we have statistics and data available.”
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has said it will study the Consumers Union petition before deciding whether to commence a federal investigation of the Samurai.
It is much too early, say the experts, to presume Samurai’s exile to ultima Thule wherein rust those firecracker Ford Pintos, runaway Audi 5000s and Ralph Nader’s Corvairs that were unsafe at any speed.
Meanwhile, said Mike Cassell, sales manager of Torrance Suzuki, “we’ll keep on trucking, as it were.”
Meanwhile, said Teresa Brown, no matter the doomsayers, she’ll continue her love affair with her Samurai with its Postal Service red and blue stripes.
“I call it my Ken and Barbie Jeep,” she said.
