• Boot is small but well-shaped
• Plenty of rear legroom
• Storage up front is useful

How much space is there?

The Ignis is one of the smallest cars on sale, so it’s not exactly surprising that it’s far from a limousine inside. But Suzuki’s done a great job of carving as much space as possible out of the car’s compact dimensions.

Part of this comes down to the car’s lightweight construction – with slim seats, narrow doors and a general lack of excess bulk there isn’t a lot to compromise the Ignis’ high, square dimensions.

The result is genuine legroom for four adults, as long as they don’t mind being relatively cosy. Passengers sit upright, with plenty of headroom, although the rear seat in particular is rather flat and unsupportive.

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The front seats are a little better, although their bolsters are very soft and only go so far towards holding you in round the corners. Still, there’s plenty of adjustment fore and aft to make even the tallest of drivers feel comfortable. However, the steering wheel only adjusts for height and not for reach.

The Ignis offers a sliding rear passenger seat, which allows you to prioritise either boot space or passenger room. In reality, it’s likely to be left in its rearmost position most of the time as when slid forward there’s a minimum of legroom – however, it’s a good way to sneak out a bit of extra boot room if you have rear passengers who don’t need legroom, such as those in child seats. Speaking of child seats, both rear seats offer Isofix mounting points.

Boot space and storage

The standard front-wheel drive Suzuki Ignis has a 267 litre boot. That’s more than is offered by the Skoda Citigo or Hyundai i10, and it’s nice and square in shape, too – although there’s rather large load lip to lug bags over and no clever adjustable boot floor to allow for a flat surface when the rear seats are folded.

Fold the rear seats flat and space in the boot expands to an impressive 1,100 litres. However, the four-wheel drive AllGrip models have extra mechanicals to package under the boot floor, which eats space. As such, the seats-up capacity in those models drops to just 204 litres.

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Storage up front in the Ignis is good. You get a twin-level glovebox, cupholders in the centre console and decent-sized door bins. There’s also a useful shelf ahead of the gear lever which provides a handy place to keep your phone while it’s plugged into the car’s USB ports.

Safety

• Ignis was tested back in 2016
• Three-star standard score is disappointing
• Safety kit lacking on all but top model

The entry-level Ignis SZ-T received a rather disappointing three-star safety score from Euro NCAP. Its structure performed well enough in crash tests, but the testers found the standard car to be lacking in safety equipment.

However, if you splash out on the range-topping Ignis SZ5, you get an upgraded safety pack that boosts the car’s Euro NCAP score to five stars. The package adds a camera-based autonomous emergency braking system, lane departure warning, cruise control and weaving alert, which will chime if it senses the car is wandering due to driver fatigue.

In addition, all cars come with six airbags, a speed limiter, stability control and a tyre pressure monitoring system. Just bear in mind that the Ignis was last crash-tested in 2016. Since then, Euro NCAP has tightened up its regulations, meaning the standard Ignis might not perform as well in an accident as a newer city car such as the Toyota Aygo X.

Watch the Suzuki Ignis Euro NCAP crash test