Car Review: Smart fortwo Brabus Xclusive Cabrio

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In an age when cars are getting steadily bigger and bigger and bigger, the Smart is uncompromising. Or as uncompromising as it can be when customers keep demanding more metal for their money. Parked neatly in its little two-seater truncated niche, it is the only mainstream vehicle of its kind. It’s only near volume competitor, the clever and innovative three-seater Toyota iQ has melted away (a future classic, in my view). There was also the curious rear-engined Mitsubishi i. That too had a rear engine, an all-electric option, four doors and a top speed of 80mph. Even more cultish than a Smart, I guess.

So now Smart has the field to itself again. When it was launched twenty years ago the Smart was a startling little thing, bug eyed and upright, as much as style as engineering. It was a rolling rebuke to others, for even then cars were becoming victims of size (and price) inflation. The Smart has – mostly – resisted this, but I have to report that this Smart ForTwo is about 20 per cent wider and 10 per cent longer than that original Smart car – so not entirely immune from the modern trend towards auto-obesity. Still, at 2.7 metres long and 1.9 metres wide, it’s still dinky by most standards, and a much better option for the city than a Chelsea tractor.

Does the Smart still make sense today? And does the most expensive version, the tuned Brabus model available and tested here as a convertible and in top-end Xclusive trim, make much sense?

Mostly, yes. To get things in perspective, a sub-ten second time for the dash to 60 mph isn’t that fast, given that a base Vauxhall Adam will match that. But now the Smart delivers such pace as it can in a civilised fashion. For those unfamiliar with the current state of the Smart breed, I should immediately reassure you that the old jerky automatic gearboxes that arrived with the first generation of Smarts have long since been dispensed with. Today’s transmissions, manual and conventional automatic, are much smoother, and cope with this Brabus’ eagerness very well, freely allowing the rear-mounted engine to give you a satisfying boot up the jacksy whenever you put your foot down. That said, the auto box, coupled with a “stop-start” cut out at the lights to save fuel, means the Smart can hesitate before it lurches into action on green: quick getaways are not really on in such circumstances. Though the Smart is far from the only car on the road guilty of this hesitancy, it erodes the car’s appeal as a nippy player in traffic.

More positively, from such a relatively unpromising set-up, the advanced electronics and sophisticated suspension design do endow the Smart fortwo with surprisingly safe and predictable handling. Where once rear-engine and rear-drive was not such a bizarre notion – VW Beetle, Hillman Imp, old-school Skodas and Renaults all ran that way – nowadays it is quite alien, because the front-engine front-wheel drive formula popularised by the original Mini is such a good fit for smaller cars. I suppose having the engine in the “boot” adds to what is still the novelty of the Smart (no “boot” where the engine should be in the front, by the way – that space is occupied by ancillaries such as the battery, washer bottle and so on. Luggage goes behind the seats). Having the engine in the back does have a couple unquestioned advantages for a city car, such as a much tighter turning circle (6.95 metres) and the pug-like snub nosed smiley face also makes it easier to squish into tiny spots. According to some, the Smart is legal to park sideways.

The Smart fortwo in Xclusive trim comes equipped with a rear parking camera and sensors, laughably unnecessary on such an easily manoeuvrable car where you can almost reach over the back of the hood to feel if you’re too close to whatever you’re backing towards. In the fabric-roofed Cabrio visibility is excellent, of course. For some urbanites, then, only a Smart will do, and owners Daimler, better known as manufacturers of Mercedes-Benz, are happy to make the more affluent among them a very smart Smart, with all the sorts of accoutrements they might be used to in fancier machines. So there’s satnav, heated seats, a neat air conditioning unit, matte paint options, 17-inch alloy wheels, tyre-pressure monitoring, an “eco-meter” that tells you how green your driving style is (a little incongruous on a sporty variant), leather trimmed seats and dash, and, as here, a convertible and tuned option, just as you’d get on a Mercedes SL, say.

Still, over £20,000 is an awful lot to shell out, even for a vehicle as focussed on a certain clientele – super-rich urbanites – as this one. The base Cabrio, at about £13,500 makes much better sense, for anyone, as does the electric Cabrio at £19,000 (where you’ll make some savings on fuel if you keep your Smart for a very long time).

Once you get going then the Brabus stays lively at all legal speeds, and feels remarkably refined given its small wheelbase. Remember, though, that this car is itself scarcely longer than a speed bump, and unless you really assault pot holes it’ll give you a reasonably smooth ride, considering. The inviting-looking seats weren’t, I found, all that comfortable, perforated leather or not. You should also know that it is as safe as most other small cars, with its strong Tridion safety cell (visible from the side as a distinctive L-shaped structure), side bars and deformable panelwork absorbing much of an impact.

Overall, though, the toytown styling belies a grown-up quality to the Smart. The fortwo is, in fact, a small car that apes a big car, but I still think it is a bit of a shame that it isn’t quite as small as once it was. That’s inflation for you.