While this isn’t a totally new segment in Thailand, some current players haven’t managed to really create a stir among budget-conscious Thais, who are usually picky either about product quality or brand factor.

The Honda Brio, for one, is a good car to drive but suffered doubts in perceptive quality ever since it was launched. The Kia Picanto is a stylish choice but is sold via a dubious sales network. And then there’s the aggressively priced Proton Savvy which had to endure a combination of both.

Which, all of a sudden, might sound good news for Suzuki because, after test driving the Celerio on Thai roads, we found it to be quite a good car for people who simply need a cost-effective, compact mode of transport primarily for town use.

Of course, A-segment cars have wafer-thin margins and there’s the imperative need to cut costs as much as possible. But Suzuki seems to have done a better job in masking — at least from visual and tangible sense — cost-cutting measures than its rivals.

The Celerio’s doors and boot lid, as primary examples, shut convincingly without any trace of hollowness. And while hard plastics dominate the cabin, they are put decently well together to form a consistent sense of quality. The Brio, on the other hand, feels like a mish-mash of new bits with unmatched leftovers from a toymaker.

That could be attributed to the fact that Celerio is intended as a global car for even sophisticated markets like Europe, unlike the Brio that has been developed only for emerging markets. As well, Suzuki is a specialist in small cars.

The Celerio’s interior has also been designed in a down-to-earth manner. There’s limited adjustment for the driver’s seat (no height adjustment, as such) but you’d easily attain a comfortable position and find virtually all functions in their natural places.

Entry and exit through whichever door is easy, while there’s no shortage of either head or leg room in both the front and rear. Special thanks go to the thin front seats which, however, have a one-piece design like in the Brio to save costs.

Considering its exterior dimensions, the Celerio’s boot space is quite good although it isn’t flat when the rear seats fold down. But for all these marvels in packaging comes a bland design in which Suzuki stylists were apparently forced to make the car as boxy as possible to gain on space points.

As the Celerio is developed to be positioned a rung below the Swift in the car market, Suzuki has fitted it with a smaller 1.0-litre petrol engine using just three cylinders.

The 68hp output may sound meek to some ears. Fortunately, the rather light body the modest power has to cope with means performance is hardly lacking in the real world.

There’s enough pace around town and the way it’s delivered to the tarmac is smooth. Special thanks goes the CVT automatic which has been used in place of a four-speed torque-converter auto (as can be found in other markets) so that the Celerio can achieve the 20kpl requirement stipulated under Thailand’s Ecocar rules.

You can feel such an orientation towards fuel economy when you take the car to speeds above the legal limit, where the engine begins to have difficulties in breathing. Another downside is the excessive engine vibration at idle speed, although you feel it through the brake pedal at red lights rather than hear it.

Speaking of economy, Suzuki is making no specific claim for the Celerio and scantly speaks of the same level it can achieve with the Swift — the brand’s first Ecocar.

It’s not surprising, actually, because the figures we obtained in Celerio are only fractionally better than in the Swift. We are speaking by a margin of probably just 1kpl, although the Celerio seems to have a tendency to excel more in city-driving where we occasionally recorded 14-15kpl.

But what definitely does better than the engine is the chassis. For years, Suzuki has built a reputation of making small cars that handle and ride well. And the Celerio is just another, if not completely free of criticism.

The light steering, compact body and tight turning radius make the car a doddle to use in congested road space. Plus, the level of road-holding the Celerio has at high speeds is enough to put some other Ecocars to shame, one of them being the dynamically flawed Mitsubishi Mirage (and Attrage saloon cousin).

But the tautness of the chassis has also resulted in a lumpy ride that can be felt over road bumps at low speeds and when crossing road expansion joints on expressways.

Even so, the chassis set-up is acceptable for a car of this standard, combine that with brakes that bite well. The Celerio’s driving characteristics seem capable of handling more power, but by no means are we begging for a more potent engine in a car that’s mostly destined for the concrete jungle.

And now to the more important part of the Celerio. As said earlier, cost is a sensitive issue in this segment, so don’t expect to see a vast difference between it and the Swift — there’s a circa 70,000 baht saving for the Celerio spec-on-spec.

There’s the GL version costing 439,000 baht making the Celerio the cheapest passenger car with an automatic gearbox available in the Thai market alongside the Malaysian Savvy.

While the GL isn’t a nasty cost-cutter as the 359,000 baht GA manual version — only mattered as bait for getting people into showrooms because nobody really likes a clutch pedal these days — it still lacks several safety convenience options. It’s a good start for Honda in adopting a policy for making twin airbags and ABS standard in all of its passenger cars, regardless of class or price.

For the Celerio, it’s better to go for the 488,000 baht GLX which gets dual airbags and ABS (but no head restraints for rear passengers, still) and some more electrical goodies and mag wheels.

If you have such kind of money to spare and are looking for an economical, agile yet practical city car, the Celerio is worth looking at. It’s not that cheap in feeling as some might tend to suggest and is, in fact, quite a decent car to use and drive.