Suzuki never gave the current Jimny a convertible option. Japanese tuner Damd decided to fake one instead.
The company’s new Slash Garnish is a diagonal trim strip that mounts directly onto the rear side glass of the three-door Jimny, splitting each window into two panes. The visual effect mimics the canopy line of earlier soft-top Jimnys, the ones with fabric roofs and a rawness that the modern car quietly abandoned. It’s a $330 piece of trim that does nothing functional except make people do a double take.
That’s the entire pitch, and it’s oddly compelling.
Damd built its name bolting wild body kits onto Jimnys, kits that made them look like shrunken Defenders or baby G-Wagens. This is a departure. Instead of cosplaying as someone else’s truck, the Slash Garnish turns the Jimny’s gaze inward, referencing its own heritage.
The earlier generations of this little 4×4 had removable soft tops that gave them a distinct greenhouse profile, a split between the fixed structure and the canvas. That lineage disappeared when the current JB64/JB74 arrived with its sealed hardtop.
The garnish comes unpainted or in three factory-matched colors: Medium Gray, Jungle Green, and Chiffon Ivory Metallic. An optional wood panel adds vintage texture for another $150 and ties into Damd’s existing wood-accented roof basket. Combined with a contrasting roof and pillar wrap, the rear section of the roof genuinely reads like a detachable hardtop.
There are trade-offs. Rear passengers lose a slice of their outward view. The garnish doesn’t fit the five-door Jimny Nomade because the greenhouse shape is different.
The full package, painted strip, wood trim, and shipping, runs about $720 before anyone touches a wrench. That’s real money for a cosmetic accessory on a vehicle that starts under $20,000 in most markets.
But the Jimny has always attracted owners who spend disproportionately on personalization. The aftermarket ecosystem around this truck is enormous relative to its size and price, particularly in Japan, where kei-class Jimnys compete for parking spots in Tokyo while dreaming of mountain trails. Damd understands this audience better than almost anyone.
The deeper tension here is one Suzuki created by omission. The current Jimny is wildly popular, sold in dozens of markets, and adored by enthusiasts who would line up for a factory soft-top variant. Suzuki has never offered one.
No convertible, no targa, no removable panels. That gap between what buyers want and what Suzuki will build is exactly where companies like Damd operate.
A $330 trim strip that fools the eye into seeing a convertible that doesn’t exist is a clever product. It’s also a quiet indictment of a manufacturer that left the opportunity sitting on the table.
Damd didn’t invent the demand. Suzuki did, decades ago, with canvas-topped Jimnys that became icons. Then Suzuki walked away from it. Now a tuner is selling the nostalgia back, one diagonal line at a time.
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