ONE of these Saturdays, while you are sipping your cuppa here in Singapore, a guy with his helmet and driving gloves on, his right foot mashed into the pedal of his tennis ball yellow Suzuki Swift Sport will be charging towards Turn 1 at the Sepang circuit.

The Swift Sport in manual form has to be the performance bargain of the moment. It is not immensely quick - there are a slew of hop-up options to address that - but out of the box, it handles like a properly bred sporty car, one that doesn't shy away from a proper track outing.

That it doesn't look half bad comes as a bonus.

Now, you can have the Sport's good looks for a whopping $11,400 less.

Expectedly, there are some notable trade-offs. Like not having the bright yellow hue, the 16-inch alloy wheels, fog lamps, twin exhaust pipes... the whole nine yards that Suzuki added onto the standard Swift to create the Sport's look.

More accurately, this really isn't a cut-price Swift Sport, but the 1.3-litre model that has been made officially available recently. Together with the Sport, the pair bookend the standard 1.5-litre model that the current Swift line debuted with.

Incidentally, there are parallel importers who have been selling this model with an option to dress the car up to look like the Sport, just to confuse things a little.

Typically, the idea behind introducing a lower end variant in the middle of a car's model life is to lower the bar without actually knocking off the price of the existing version.

As part of justifying the price differences, corners are cut and some goodies deleted. In the past, some carmakers have even resorted to making a perfectly good-looking car uglier and poorer.

This may include leaving the bumpers unpainted and having manual window winders - so you'll probably leave the windows ajar and get the cheap upholstery wet and smelly.

Often the excuse given is that doing without the bells-and-whistles enables the price to be lowered, but the real message is this: 'You have bought the poverty spec model and we want you to feel the anguish of deprivation.'

Rather unfortunately for the powers that be who may harbour such discriminating notions, this is not quite the case with the Swift 1.3. The car is too well equipped and feels too complete for the buyer to feel shortchanged in any significant way.

Suzuki feigns an apologetic face to say that the smaller engine does without the variable valve timing technology found on the 1.5-litre and output is down by 10 per cent. Indeed, the shortfall in ponies means that it takes a bit longer to get into three-digit figures and the engine does get a little noisier when worked.

But, on the critical fronts, like climbing up carpark ramps and generally pottering around town, the 1.3 does just fine. Official figures suggest that the smaller engine is 10 per cent more frugal with fuel - hardly a bad thing.

Other than small differences like the missing seat-height adjustment for the driver, steering-mounted remote for the factory-fitted stereo system as well as the chrome bits over the transmission gate and air-con vents, the Swift is still ever so delightful.

If you opt for a black car like the one in the photo, you won't even pick out the unpainted wing mirrors and door handles.

Probably the most annoying thing about missing out on the 1.5-litre model is the absence of the 15-inch alloy wheels shod with wider tyres. The shiny 14-inch wheels on the test car are uglier than the ones on some taxis and the skinny tyres take a bit of the sharpness out of the handling that has made the Swift such a joy to drive enthusiastically.

It's just Suzuki trying to whisper that line about trying to make us feel miserable, but not with much success.

The fact that the 1.3 doesn't feel too much like the bargain basement variant is because it doesn't quite have that bargain basement price.

The lofty five-digit saving mentioned earlier only applies when you are measuring it against the top of the line 1.6-litre Sport model.

Take it down a notch and compare it to the 1.5-litre automatic version and the savings total up to a mere $4,000. Spend that wad on leather upholstery, wheels and a few other tasteful upgrades and it's down to naught.

A case of much ado about nothing then? Maybe that's why it took Suzuki so long to bring in the Swift 1.3 in the first place.

SUZUKI SWIFT 1.3
Price: $54,400 with COE
Engine: 1,328cc 16-valve inline-4
Transmission: Four-speed automatic
Power: 92bhp at 5,800rpm
Torque: 116Nm at 4,200rpm
0-100kmh: 13.7 seconds
Top speed: 170kmh
Fuel consumption: 8.6 litres/100km (city)
Agent: Champion Motors

The writer is Editor of Torque, a monthly published by SPH Magazines