Smart Roadster Brabus Xclusive
Smart Roadster Brabus Xclusive
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PaulG40

Original Poster:

2,381 posts

254 months

Tuesday 30th April 2013
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Thought I'd post up some pics of mine and the missus's new car. It's primarily her car, and I always end up with the commuting car (pug 306),but I get to drive them and have fun in them. Previous to this Brabus, we had a star blue Smart Roadster 80 that we both loved, it was modded, remapped etc, running fairly good power and was damn good fun in the bends. But, after two years the harsh ride was starting to get annoying and we were missing power. The deal was sealed when some idiot woman parked her car into the side of the Smartie, the love for it started to fade so to had to go.

Thinking along the lines of VX220 N/As, S1 Elises and the like, somehow we ended up with a Yellow Mk1 Audi TT 225 Roadster with nice 18" 'S' wheels. The power was nice although it felt slower than the Polo G40's we'd had before and was begging for a remap. The handling was certain, but numb and didn't feel like it involved you, and the with a new job requiring my missus to do 60+miles a day as opposed to less than 20mile beforehand, the petrol costs started to hurt abit.

So after 6months, and bringing us upto the present, With the requirement set at economy required, but some power and lots of fun still, we both knew we had to go back to the Smart. We purchased this Silver Brabus Xclusive on saturday. It's an 2006 model, with all the options bar cruise control (getting fitted in two weeks though smile ), only 43K on the clock and is pretty much immaculate bar a few stone chips. Didn't stop me doing a major detail on it, all the nooks and crannies etc today.

Plans are to remap it, do the brakes and a few other treats but first thing it's having is a full C service and the cruise control fitted along with a pipercross ram air filter.

Hope the pics are OK, abit sunny today.












and the Yellow TT Quattro Roadster that preceded the Brabus...


Followed by the first Smartie that got us hooked.




Plans for the future include getting a For-two as a 3rd car for commuting and keeping the Brabus for fun, track days etc. I still dream about getting a S1 Elise 111S though (or a 160).

GTiFrank

629 posts

213 months

Tuesday 30th April 2013
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Nice write up thumbup

Had a mate with one of these, remember it sounding great and being a bit pokier than the power figure would have you thinking! How have you found the auto box? Is there really a way of driving around it?

Nice job on the detailing too.

PaulG40

Original Poster:

2,381 posts

254 months

Wednesday 1st May 2013
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Thank you.

The gearbox, the shift feels nicer than our first roadster, maybe it's a better and newer actuator.

Never had a problem driving the box, tend to use the paddles but you drive it and change down in a pre emptive manner, I wouldn't say it's ever got caught out mid junction like some people have issues with.

AH33

2,066 posts

164 months

Wednesday 1st May 2013
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Very nice, always loved the Brabus, and that one sounds like a minter! Good job. I had a standard 80bhp for 3 years (completely trouble free!) until I moved to a Edinburgh and it died due to heavy city centre use and a pretty lax standard of servicing frown




Edited by AH33 on Wednesday 1st May 09:04

Dalto123

3,205 posts

192 months

Wednesday 1st May 2013
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Lovely cars - and increasingly rare the Brabus versions especially!

On the look out for a first car at the moment, and am looking closely at a Smart Roadster 80. Think I may need to go and drive one! biggrin

PaulG40

Original Poster:

2,381 posts

254 months

Wednesday 1st May 2013
quotequote all
If you drive alot of B and A roads, they are brilliant fun and you can make some very swift progress. Alot of people hate the fact that they are under powered especially if the only accelerations they do are dual carriageway type driving, although fairly swift, you do get abit jealous and sometimes annoyed of people with their boggo TDi's easily out doing you.

People at my missus's old work used to joke about the blue one being a toy car, with its 700cc turbo engine (remapped to 105bhp and boosting to 1.5bar) until they had a ride in it and saw how quickly corners could be taken and it's stability through the bends, the turbo whooshing and chirping away and the flat torque band (110lb/ft) from 2500rpm all the way to 5500rpm, coupled to the fact of 50+mpg, cheap tax and insurance. They were soon looking in the classifieds for one.

mrdelmonti

1,420 posts

210 months

Wednesday 1st May 2013
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Miss my old greenhouse, it was terrific fun, handled like a go kart and was nippy enough on the twistys are a remap, and the sound of the turbo coming from behind you as you knocked it up a gear at full chat. cloud9

I'll have another some day.