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Hyperbole is the poetry of marketing. It is designed to capture your attention and tickle your imagination — to seduce you.

It should not be taken seriously.

Consider this week’s subject car, the 2008 Suzuki SX4 Sport sedan. It sounds hot — “SX4” — like sexy four times over. Suzuki’s marketers try to add more heat, calling the car “a wicked ride” and “hypnotic.” It’s enough to make a young man lust in his heart.

But the truth is, he would have more fun drinking Coca-Cola at Hooters. The little car is a joke.

It’s not an awful joke. It’s just a silly one, like a television commercial featuring a baby talking with an adult’s voice. You know it’s not real. But it gets your attention. And when you get the joke, you laugh.

I laughed during my entire week in the SX4, essentially an economy sedan based on a hatchback-wagon platform pretending to be “sport” and “wicked” and “hypnotic.”

Step inside the tested version of the SX4 with the “comfort and convenience” package, which means it comes with power windows and door locks, heated mirrors, air conditioning and a four-speed automatic transmission.

At first, you nod in approval — not bad for a little car with a price tag around $16,000. Then you think about comparable models — the 2008 Ford Focus, Honda Civic, Mazda3 and the latest version of the Toyota Corolla.

Then, you really laugh.

The SX4 is a decent little city runner. But it’s nowhere near “wicked” or “sport” or “hypnotic.” That would be comical enough. But in terms of overall quality, comfort and utility, it’s also nowhere near any of its putative rivals — only one of which, the Mazda3, has the temerity to claim zoom-zoom status and the chutzpah to back it up.

Put another way, Suzuki’s marketers have overhyped the front-wheel-drive SX4 sedan, and that’s too bad. By touting it as being more than it really is, they’ve exposed its weaknesses in a brutally competitive segment of the automotive market. For example, the quality of materials, fit and finish in the SX4 is discernibly inferior to that of the Focus, Mazda3 and Corolla.

Other SX4 deficits include limited cargo space, compromised in the SX4 by rear seats that cannot be folded forward.

Suzuki boasts that the SX4 “outguns” models such as the Corolla, which has been redesigned for the 2009 model year. The SX4 has a standard 2.1-liter, 143-horsepower, in-line four-cylinder engine. The new Corolla comes with a 1.8-liter, 132-horsepower, in-line four-cylinder engine.

So what?

We’re talking about economy cars here. Most people who buy economy cars aren’t looking for racetrack performance. For them, winning means stopping at the gas pump as seldom as possible. In that regard, the SX4 turns in a credible performance with 23 miles per gallon in the city and 31 mpg on the highway. But even that performance is relatively underwhelming in the increasingly fuel-efficient world of small cars.

The new Corolla, for example, gets 27 miles per gallon in the city and 35 mpg on the highway. When it comes to fuel economy, when considering the SX4 vs. the Corolla, most consumers are likely to choose the Corolla, assuming that the purchase decision is not entirely influenced by price.

If price is the ultimate determinant, then Suzuki has a chance to get the sale. The SX4 offers a lot for the money, including a 100,000-mile, seven-year transferable warranty on the car’s engine and transmission, and around-the-clock emergency roadside assistance every day of the year.

That’s a nice security blanket. That’s a good bargain. And that is how Suzuki’s marketers should have touted their little car: “It’s a good, cheap ride with a great insurance plan.”

But I guess that doesn’t sound as sexy as “wicked” and “sport” and “hypnotic.”