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It's taken half a century, but at last we have discovered the true meaning of the name given to Suzuki's inordinately cute off-roader, the Jimny.
Speaking at the 50 Year Celebration of Jimny production at the ADA off-road centre near Hartbeespoort dam, Suzuki Auto South Africa's Managing Director, Yukio Sato, revealed the name came about as an amalgamation of "Jeep" and "Mini", - in other words, a miniature Jeep.
Nowadays Suzuki doesn't exactly relish any reference to the Jeep brand, but when the Suzuki SJ 410 was launched in South Africa in the early 1980s, everyone referred to it as the "Suzuki Jeep". The term "Jeep" was pretty much generic in those days, to the extent where small Land Rovers were also referred to as Jeeps.