Smart Roadster Brabus Review: The Car That Took 20 Years To Make Sense

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It was great meeting and sharing my car with you James, thanks for making it happen! Colin

I bought a non brabus smart roadster coupe for 1.2k and I absolutely love it. The roof doesn't leak and the turbo flutter is amazing. Unfortunately I don't use it very often so it will be up for sale soon. Gutted to see it go!

If I acted on every Jayemm video when I said, oh yeh I really wanted one of them, I’d be homeless, and bankrupt, and most likely long divorced

Had one for a couple of years, had it remapped to just over 125bhp & with more torque lower down the rev range it made a real difference to the driving experience. Wish I’d never sold it now!

It's all about the visceral mechanical experience. I'd say 7 times out of 10 I choose to take my Brabus over my 460bhp Porsche. We do the shopping in the Brabus, weekend tours around the UK with the roof down. Absolutely love every minute of it, manually shifting that slow gearbox is more fun than shifting through an 8 speed Porsche PDK gearbox!!

Your issue Jay is you are slowing down for the corners, just keep it flat and it will fly round. I loved mine, especially when the tyres were new you could lift the outer front on turn in grip alone, you could out corner anything your were likely to meet in day to day driving on any B road. Took mine to the IoM and it was brilliant, apart from being a bit too low for the ferry ramps. I also loved the 45mpg at a 90mph cruise (in Germany). Just a shame it had to go back as it was on the Mercedes-Benz employee scheme and by the time I wanted another they had stopped making it. So had to have a C230 Sports Coupe instead, and that was crap.

I have as a daily a Smart Roadster Coupe from 2016 and I made until now over 200 000km în Germany and around Europe. Right now the car is displaying over 377 000km with the original engine and gearbox, is accelerating decent at over 160 and the maintenance is really cheap. I don't know what spares are expensive because a ball-bearing is 30€, a clutch is 400 at over 200 000km, windshield was under 200€ and the new Hella bihalogen front light was 65€. My car is not leaking inside, though I've made some mods for prevention. Engine was stage 1 tuned at 109ps and 155Nm of torque so the dynamic of the car is really good. Interior wise there are plenty of luxury trims to be fitted for 4-500€, there are aftermarket one piece hardtops to be fitted and even a guy named Bayley who is selling an engine tunning kit developed in years of research and development, kit who is able to go with that engine at over 200bhp and over 8000rpm. Obviously this extreme tunning is not cheap but with just over 10 k you'll have more power to weight ratio than a Porsche Cayman. Soft-top can be also changed with a new one for around 400€. ... Yes, this is a fun and eye-catching little car ❤

I remember back in the day Smart showed the coupe/roadster concept at a press/analyst thing and all was going well - I loved it - then I asked the price. I mean it was as if no one had done marketing basics. The whole Smart problem was always that they believed they were prestige. Prestige and respect are the same - both are earned - simply yelling at people to respect you or yelling you are prestige are not effective strategies. With the right pricing smart could have flown - now it’s barely alive.

I've owned my roadster finale for 15 years now. and it still looks as good as new. its like part of the family, both my wife and daughter love going out for a drive in it. The only things I've had to do with it is regular servicing , replace the front ball joints and have the wheels refurbished. The only issue i have with it is a slight leak over the door mirrors in heavy rain, which is kept in check by treating the door seals with a regular coating of pure silicone lubricant ( from ebay). but as it only comes out when the sun comes out, its not a problem. a brilliant fun car that makes a fantastic noise. definitely a future classic. Ill only sell it when i can no longer get in it.

Had mine for 3k 10 years ago! Will never sell it! It's my perfect car. I'm a British/French dual national who works in Switzerland, so it's a perfect fit.

they always made sense ,,, just not to everyone. But look it ,,, what a looker , they look 20k more expensive than they are .

My mum had the city coupe and put me on the insurance one summer when i was back from university. Words can't describe how terrible the gearbox is, the gear changes are so unbelievably slow it was painful to drive

I had the basic roadster, and the handling was still brilliant. Also had decent power. Low fuel consumption. I found the seats really comfortable on long trips. Also mine was a hard top version. Leaking can be handled with putting silicon grease on the seals to keep them supple. Door handle can fail if pulled from both sides simultaneously. Ignition lock can collapse in randomly. But for both there are permanent fixes from the support forums. Overall, a fantastic car, I would buy one again in a heartbeat

Sounds like that one needs it's gear oil changed. It became a regular service item for our car and the gearbox never gave us any trouble with that regime. I couldn't stand auto mode and always used the paddles, whereupon the gearbox was entirely predictable. No it isn't a 3 speed with overdrive, though there are two final drives, neither has a ratio >1 and it's not a bolted on epicyclic. It's a bespoke triple shaft Getrag box. Pub fact: technically it has 2 reverse ratios. We took ours from 40 to 120k miles and had several memorable driving holidays in Scotland (from Sussex!). We have very fond memories of our little notch-back, and only sold it when my wife got pregnant. Replaced with a ForTwo which we still have, and our son is now 9 :)

I was selling smarts from 2003 and when the roadster came out we were hugely excited. It looks fantastic and the turbo flutter is addictive. I shall never forget the launch in the Monaco hills where we were told to keep up with the city-coupe pace car driven by a pro driver - what a drive that was. Unfortunately, back in the UK the pricing was £2,000 too high imo, the seats were almost on the floor making ingress and exit a nightmare for anyone over 25 and customers were unimpressed with the size of the small, 0.7l, engine. The car flunked and soon we had huge quantities sitting in our compound gathering dust. Such a shame.

My wife had a couple smart four twos. These do respond well to a remap and if you replace the the gear box and engine mounts with polly bush the gear change is vastly improved. Old racing buddy of mine was very fortunate to drive a prototype v6 Brabus he was really impressed with that. But it never went into production because he was told it would have cost too much.

I had the same one a few years back, it's the Xclusive version. Mine had a few nice mods including a polished throttle body, forge dump valve, performance filter and a remap to about 120bhp. It was pretty quick for what it was but hopeless off the line. It also had some proper carbon fibre upgrades in the cabin and best of all the stupidly expensive Raid V6 steering wheel which transformed how the car drove. As you mentioned, parts were getting a bit scarce and servicing was best left to a specialist which was a pain in the arse. I ran it alongside a Eunos Roadster which I still have as ultimately it's a far better car to drive and live with.

I had the roadster with the targa hardtop. The rubber seals required regular silicone spray to prevent water ingress and axle grease in the mirror adjuster stopped the rain pouring in. Perhaps not the best car to own in ireland but huge fun. Gearbox was liveable with experience but could be awkward at roundabouts.

I'm so happy you reviewed a Smart Roadster. I have a Coupe 82hp. Such a fun car. Not the fastest on straight line but great on twisty roads. Great review!