Like a fine wine, apparently, the Suzuki Samurai gets better with age. Well, at least it got more valuable. According to collector car insurance agency Hagerty, the humble Samurai is on the bull market list for 2022. Meaning collectors will be rushing out to find the half dozen Samurai’s that still exist and haven’t rusted away or been hacked up into rock buggies.
Amazingly, if you can find a clean one owner, you’ll be looking at forking over between $10,000 and $14,500 for it. And for a vehicle that retailed new for $7,000, that’s not bad.
For the unfamiliar, the Samurai is a small SUV that was imported to the US from 1986 to 1995. Weighing in at about 1700-lbs with an 80-inch wheelbase and only 53-inches wide, most modern UTV’s are bigger, and they definitely have more power than the paltry 64HP (hamster power) the 1.3-liter inline four was putting out.
Photo by Stephen Nielson 
Photo by Stephen Nielson
Despite its meager specs, the Samurai built a fierce reputation as a go-anywhere 4×4. Its diminutive size meant that bone stock it could get places that even highly modified vehicles struggled. And I should know. I drove a Samurai as my primary vehicle for 12 years and wheeled it on everything from forest roads to the Golden Spike in Moab, and never with more than a three-quarter inch lift, 235/75/15 mud terrain tires, a rear locker, and a 4:1 transfer case.
Maybe it’s time to get the mine back on the road, but I don’t think I could ever sell it.
