They say social media is making political discourse more polarised, but has there been a more polarising discussion than the one about parking a Smart Fortwo perpendicular to the pavement in roadside bays? Owners claimed it was their right as tiny car drivers, while local councils said it broke parking rules. It trended sufficiently high on Twitter that in 2014 the BBC even ran a national TV news bulletin about it. Oh, how things have changed. Parking bays haven’t grown in size since then, but Smart cars have. By a lot.
Case in point, the new Smart #5 you see here. It’s the third car in Smart’s relaunched line-up and measures 4.7 metres in length, making it 430mm longer than the #1, Smart’s current smallest offering, and almost twice the length of the original and often controversially parked Fortwo. That means it can count everything from the Skoda Enyaq to the Audi Q4 e-tron and even Tesla Model Y as rivals. And yes, this one is the Brabus flagship. And yes, it really looks like that.
As we know, electric SUVs often come with ridiculous performance figures and the Smart #5 is no different. The base model has 340hp and rear-wheel drive (and an ESC off button…), but this top Brabus variant has 646hp and all-wheel drive. With 524lb ft of twin motor supplied torque, this is a £51,800 Smart that can crack 62mph in 3.8 seconds, ranking it well ahead of the quickest (and closely related) Mercedes EQB.
Hang on, a Smart rivalling a Mercedes? Yes, you read that right. In fact, Smart is no longer a purely Mercedes operation because it’s jointly owned by Chinese auto giant Geely, which PHers will know well from its ownership of Lotus and Polestar. But in the case of Smart, Mercedes is responsible for the design and quality in its vehicles, while Geely handles the underlying tech, including research and development, and production. In theory, this ought to mean that you get Mercedes quality with Geely tech and equipment, for a vaguely competitive price.
It’s obviously no accident that the entry-level Smart #5 Pro ducks under the UK’s £40k luxury car tax by £200, but the version you see here will need more than just a few Brabus badges to make it feel price competitive in such a hotly contested segment. On first impressions, it does seem to deliver on that front, adding a somewhat divisive body kit with red flashes and 21-inch alloys, along with a well-built Alcantara and vegan leather-clad interior that builds on the generous spec of the Premium variant that sits below it. It actually looks and feels premium, too - and a far cry from Smarts of old.
Certainly, you couldn’t have fit as much stuff into Smart’s former wares. In the #5 Brabus, you get three screens inside, including one for the passenger, which are powered by a supercomputer to make the system one of the quickest and slickest out there. The voice control tech is genuinely brilliant (you can ask for weather updates, climate control, and even driving mode changes in conversational language), and there are built-in games and even video streaming services, like Netflix and YouTube, to keep you entertained when charging.
On that subject, charging the 100kW battery-equipped Brabus from 10 to 80% can take as little as 18 minutes thanks to the car’s 800-volt, 400kW hardware, which is handy, because a 335-mile range is decent but not class-leading. Of course, in Britain, you’re presently more likely to find 150kW or at best, 350kW, but that should still equate to a circa 30-minute top-up. Should your passenger need more time than that to finish their streamed videos, they can continue watching on their screen even when the car’s on the move, connecting Bluetooth headphones to separate their audio from the car’s speakers. Not surprisingly, for safety reasons, the in-car tech will pause the video if the driver looks across at it for too long.
Thankfully, it’s not all about screens. The Brabus gets the #5’s top-spec Sennheiser sound system with 20 speakers and Dolby Atmos software, as well as other tech goodies like electric memory and ventilated front seats, heated seats all round, and an augmented reality head-up display to help with directions. Oh, and there are two wireless phone charging spots and no shortage of storage space, including door bins big enough to swallow 2-litre bottles of water.
Passenger space is certainly not a problem in this car, with leg and headroom being so family-friendly in the back that even three fully grown adults can sit side-by-side in relative comfort. A full-length panoramic sunroof ensures it feels nice and airy, and reclining rear seats mean you can get seriously comfy. That’s without noticeably hindering boot space too, as with 630 litres the #5 ranks near the top of the class, and you even get an additional 47 litres of front boot (okay, frunk) in this twin-motor Brabus. Go for a lower-grade rear-drive model, and that grows to 72 litres. Impressive.
But in a 4.7-metre-long electric SUV produced by Mercedes and Geely, is a generous supply of tech and space surprising? Probably not. What might surprise is how the Brabus gets down a road. I’m not talking about its straight-line performance, because obviously it’s absurdly quick off the line, with seemingly unbreakable traction and an instantaneous hit of torque that will give you a headache if you deploy it too often. That thrust doesn’t seem to fade as the speed builds either, meaning this is another super-SUV capable of shaming sports cars in a sprint on the drag strip. What I’m talking about is its ride and handling.
Even with 21-inch wheels (the base car gets 19s), the adaptive damper-equipped #5 has no issues dealing with the worst of British tarmac. The Brabus is naturally slightly firmer than lower-rank models, but that just means the #5 goes from being very supple to supple enough, with the Comfort mode softening the blow of speed humps and potholes even if you hammer into them at a decent rate of knots. Better yet, body control even in this softest drive mode is good, meaning cross-country progress can be smooth, controlled and immensely fast. Switch into Sport mode and the Brabus fights physics in the bends, without becoming too harsh over surface imperfections.
Sure, there’s no steering feel, and the enormous grip offered by the all-wheel drive system means the Brabus actually feels less innately dynamic than the rear-drive cars. But you can’t help but be impressed with the accuracy and consistency of the #5 Brabus’s body control and comfort. Slow things down and the light steering, along with sharp, 360-degree camera views, make manoeuvring in town much easier. Although existing EV owners might be disappointed to find there’s no way to adjust the regenerative braking, aka one-pedal driving strength, without diving into the menus. At least the strongest setting almost brings the car to a complete stop.
There’s certainly no shortage of high-performance electric cars out there that provide migraine-inducing levels of straight-line performance, but there aren’t that many that can mix the turn of pace offered by the #5 Brabus into a package that’s as comfortable and easy to live with as this. No doubt the numbers on the spec sheet would be enough to grab the attention of some, but it’s the discovery of the Brabus’s overall polish that has impressed me most. And while some will sniff at the idea of spending £52k on a Smart, this #5 - and in particular, this Brabus - is a very different proposition to what’s come before. Sure, its dimensions mean it’s unlikely to make the motoring bulletin of the News at Ten anytime soon, but its talents mean it might end up an equally common sight on UK roads.
SPECIFICATION | SMART #5 BRABUS
Engine: 100kWh battery, twin electric motors
Transmission: Single-speed automatic, all-wheel drive
Power (hp): 646
Torque (lb ft): 524
0-62mph: 3.8secs
Top speed: 130mph (limited)
Weight: 2,378kg (DIN unladen)
MPG: 335 miles WLTP range, 400kW max charge rate
CO2: 0g/km (driving), 3.38mi/kWh efficiency
Price: £51,800
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