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Suzuki Vitara shows its face ahead of Paris debut

The death of Suzuki's American automotive operations can be chalked up to many, many things. One thing it cannot be blamed on, however, is the arguable goodness of its products. The company's criminally underrated offerings included the Kizashi sedan, the SX4 compact and your author's personal favorite, the Grand Vitara.
The GV rode on a radically different version of General Motors' Theta platform, which underpins the American manufacturer's current crop of crossovers, like the Chevrolet Equinox. What made the Grand Vitara special, though, was that it wasn't just another run-of-the-mill CUV. Buying the cheapest model meant living with rear-wheel drive rather than the Theta's typical front drive. Spend a bit of money, though, and you'd end up with an honest-to-goodness off-roader, sporting selectable four-wheel drive complete with low-range gearbox. It also comfortably sat five, was reasonably efficient and was quite handsome. We aren't totally sure how it turned into this.
This, of course, being the new Vitara (it replaces the Escudo, the vehicle Americans know as the Grand Vitara), and it will make its global debut at October's Paris Motor Show, which has ditched its four-wheel-drive system for a part-time all-wheel-drive system called Allgrip.

This is the facelifted Suzuki SX4 that we won't get

The car you see above is, according to China Car Times, the facelifted Suzuki SX4 crossover. We've always had a soft spot for the SX4, so the fact that it's finally getting a significant update makes us a wee bit sad - after all, Suzuki just announced late last year that it's leaving the US market, so we'll never get this upgraded little 'ute on our shores.
Changes we can see include aggressively resculpted lighting units, interesting mold lines on the front bumper cap, redesigned air intakes and unique trim fillets on the doors.
At least we can take solace in the fact that there apparently aren't any significant alterations under the new bodywork, so our crop of used SX4s should be just as capable out on the road. In China, Suzuki's 1.6- and 1.8-liter four-cylinder engines are expected to carry over to the new year, along with the current model's CVT and manual drivelines.

Suzuki Kizashi recalled due to pesky spiders

Spiders seem to love the fuel tanks of Japanese sedans. Mazda had to recall its Mazda6 twice for arachnid webs blocking their car's vent lines. Now, the Suzuki Kizashi is also being called in because spiders can block the car's evaporative canister vent hose, a condition which could cause excessive negative pressure in the tank, eventually leading to a crack and fuel leak. The campaign covers about 19,249 examples of the 2010-2013 model year Kizashi built from October 2009 through July 2012.
According to the automaker's defect notice released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the first report of a spiderweb blocking a vent line was in 2011. It began monitoring field data and found six more incidents from 2011 to 2013. In 2014, there was one more case, and with further investigation, Suzuki decided to initiate a recall. There are no reports of accidents or injuries of the webs causing accidents or injuries in the US.
In a similar move to Mazda, Suzuki is replacing the evaporative canister vent line with one that has a filter in place to keep the spiders out. Also, if the lines are obstructed by webs in a specific vehicle, the fuel tank will also get swapped. Scroll down to read the full recall announcement from NHTSA.