My son is doing a report on the history of the Samurai. Do any of you have any links to informative websites that he could use?

Ouch...

There's some stuff here in the tech spec section.

http://www.zukiworld.com/section_technical/technical_spec_samurai.htm

Izook has some nice stuff too. To get it all layed out for you, the global Suzuki website has a nice bit in their history section.

-Eric

Here are a few videos:

http://www.acksfaq.com/jimny_history.htm

http://www.acksfaq.com/consumerreports.htm

http://www.acksfaq.com/suzuki4x4history.htm

I hope this helps!

AWESOME!!!! 

Eric, he is looking more for sales numbers, CR conraversy and sami accomplishments. Specs can be found everywhere. Ack may be on to what Im looking for but I cannot open his pages on my phone. (im at work)

I saw a great story with videos about Suzuki suing consumer reports after CU claimed they killed of the Samurai.  It showed the Sammy had steady growth and then it just dropped.  Had videos and sales numbers, 12 minutes 39 seconds into the video.

The suit, which seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, comes after republication of a 1988 CR report that called the Suzuki Samurai sports utility vehicle unsafe. George F. Ball, Suzuki general counsel, said Suzuki filed the suit now because CU "has renewed its unwarranted attack on Suzuki through its January 1996 anniversary issue, its Car Buyers Guide CD-ROM and various online computer services." Suzuki said it sold 77,493 1988 model year Samurai vehicles; the following model year, after the Consumer Reports article, sales dropped to 1,435 units.

Here is a really good YouTube video


YouTube has about 6 videos, search Suzuki sues Consumer Union


Suzuki did an awesome job proving CU wrong, where is this Pittle guy now??

http://www.acksfaq.com/consumerreports.htm

The above is the entire, complete Suzuki vs Consumer's Union video on my server.   

http://www.acksfaq.com/consumerreports.htm

The above is the entire, complete Suzuki vs Consumer's Union video on my server.   

ACK, I cannnot get the consumer vids to play? Do I need a special player or is the site not working? Your first link works.

Quote from: ack on November 08, 2011, 04:43:12 PM

http://www.acksfaq.com/consumerreports.htm

The above is the entire, complete Suzuki vs Consumer's Union video on my server.   

ACK, I cannnot get the consumer vids to play? Do I need a special player or is the site not working? Your first link works.

Sorry about the problems!

I did a little playing around with three PCs I have.  Two of them worked and one did not.

The file can be played with Real Player.  The PC I could not get to work is not regularly used to view videos.  It is possible that it may not have an up-to-date version of Real Player on that PC.  That may be your problem...

I will make further checks and, if I can't come up with new information, I'll put it on Youtube.  My account allows long (more than 5 minutes) videos.

I've had too much time to spend looking at samurai history and one of my favorite sites is http://www.suzukisamuraiplanet.com/.
If I remember right the samurai was actually built by/in the land rover factory (and I think they do kind of look like mini land rovers)
The samurai was first called the Onstar ON360 before suzuki bought it.
wikipedia has a good article just look up suzuki jimny (the original, current and most common name) on google or wikipedia
They actually made a 1.9(?) liter diesel in japan and I think somewhere else, and of course still make them almost exactly the same minus modern creature comforts...

If you have a Kindle there is a book on the history of Suzuki 4x4's called the HOPE STAR ON, that covers the creation of the LJ series.  I haven't gotten an E-Reader yet so I can't review it.

One good book is the "Suzuki Sj: Lj, Sj410, Sj413 Samurai & Santana (Enthusiasts Companions)" that you can order from Amazon.  I will have to dig my copy out and so how much of the history it covers.

Probably the most interesting reference book is "Suzuki SJ 1971-97 Gold Portfolio", the Gold Portfolio series is a collection of magazine articles from around the world, from 71 to 97.  Most are from UK newspapers but a few US ones slip in there as well.  It's a great way to read up on the SJ series from the start.

I also have around 20 magazines with articles on the SJ-410 that I have bought off e-bay from time to time.

Does he want to get into the deep history of Suzuki? Like the first product was a
weaving loom machine, seems young Suzuki watched his mother toil away weaving
cloth and wanted to do something about it, from there he got into little motorcycles
just before WWII and after the war, received a grant from the Japanese government
to build on a larger scale, and continued to improve the design of the engines to become
one of the world's cutting edge leading motorcycle builders. Somewhere in there they
got into cars and little trucks, but that wasn't in the program I saw on the history channel. LOL

Wild   

I uploaded the uncut version of the Suzuki vs Consumer's Report video to Youtube and replaced it with the one on my site.  Use the same link - above - to view it.