Yes, I thought I'd get someone's back up. That's the thing about "enthusiasts"
I'm not an enthusiast - I just use/build the right car for the job. Suzukis are cheap and shitty. They're cheap and shittiness along with the light weight, simplicity and availability is what makes them useful for the inherently destructive driving I like to do. Thats doesn't make them a good car in themselves (whatever that is.) They don't even have much "character" if character means endearing flaws, in the way that Porsche 911's or Defenders turned their flaws into mythology.
The problem with the jimny is that it's not very good at what most people use them for (driving on road) they don't have enough payload to be useful for driving distances, and they're too weak/vulnerablel for the type of 4WDing their configuration implies that can do (and Sierras could do easily) but because it's in "a class of its own" people confuse that with being good.
It's fine to like the jimny. That's not the same as it being a good car. People like Lada Niva's too. Personally, I detest 70 series land cruisers and can find no redeeming features in them, but there's no doubt they're a good car.
The Defender is much the same - it's a pretty terrible car by many measures, but the flaws people find endearing in the Defender aren't functional flaws, (like a glass driveline or no payload) they're design quirks like the driving position or the clunky gearbox, which are balanced by practicalities which are also designed in, like the visibility, the size of the load area, or the off road ability.
Of course, much of this is subjective - one man's trash is another's treasure, but whilst the jimny is slipping into irrelevance because the niche it inhabits is too small, the Defender became cool partially because how terrible it was because it's unique selling point - a perceived "ruggedness" and went out with a bang.
Anyways, Jimny's doo seem to get quite good resale, and the chances are any 3 to 4 year old car ha done very little real work so is likely to be relatively trouble free.
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