Daihatsu Sirion 1.5 Sports Review: Sirion Steak

We really can’t complain about the rather conventional four speed automatic. It works well, shifts fast enough and has well spaced out gear ratios. We do wish the overdrive gear could’ve been longer for those excursions up north.

Daihatsu compares the Sirion to the Getz and Suzuki Swift in their Staff manual, citing that the Sirion has a “smoother” loading and unloading of cargo due to the more useable space area, increased levels of comfort and storage space and we have no reason to doubt that.

What we doubt though, is the 1.5 Sports driving abilities, which is especially contrasting with the Terios and Materia, both of which are better performers in terms of handling despite their comparatively awkward proportions.

It is fast, but it just doesn’t feel as exciting as it’s abovementioned rivals, both of which handle very, very well, ahead of anything of their class, especially the Korean made Getz.

To put things in perspective though, the Sirion 1.5 litre Sport goes for $53,500 with slightly less options than the competition. It is $3000 cheaper than a Suzuki Swift 1.5 in automatic form, and very good value considering that a 1.4 litre, automatic Hyundai Getz retails for and uncomfortably close $52,698, and a Honda Jazz 1.4 automatic represents extremely poor value at $61,000.

The only real threat here would be the 1.5 litre, automatic Mazda 2 in basic form, which retails for $53,988.

Logically, everyone should be abandoning the Honda showroom and flocking to buy one of these, or so we reckon. That isn’t really happening in real life, though. We wonder why. Really.

Credits: Text and Photos by Amery Reuben