A hybrid control strategy for semi-active suspension provides a good compromise between comfort and handling. Based on the hybrid coefficient the suspension can be biased towards a skyhook or a groundhook system. To provide an optimum value of the hybrid coefficient an adaptive hybrid strategy is presented in this paper. The proposed adaptive hybrid system is implemented on a two-state damper and is compared with a conventional hybrid system with fixed value of the hybrid coefficient. A quarter-car model is used to validate the results. The simulation results indicate that the proposed adaptive hybrid control system can perform better than a conventional hybrid control system. © 2017 Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.