
brd
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In the fall I replaced the tires on our 451 CityFlame with oversized tires after doing some reading about this on Evilution. The fronts were replaced with 175/55R15 and the rears with 195/50R15. What an amazing improvement in the ride and handling with these tires. You no longer shudder and shake when you inadvertently hit a pothole or other imperfections in the road, like the unintended (?) speed bumps on 400 series highways. Years ago, I had a similar improvement when I replaced the stock rims on a 2004 pulse 450 with Brabus rims. This changeover in tire size comes highly recommended.
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451 Diesel Question
brd replied to Grumpyb's topic in Operation and Maintenance: 451 Model, 2008-2015, gasoline
I agree 100%. Evilution has a lot of really useful info on the assorted smart models from the 450 right up to and including the #1. There are numerous additions and updates to the website every year. Another useful site is FQ101 which is free but it only has info on the 450, 451, 452 and 454. It hasn’t had any updates in several years however. They do have a Facebook page, as does evilution. -
Electric Smart Roadster (and Fortwo) comeback on cards
brd replied to brd's topic in In News & Entertainment
It’s a 15 year rule to import a car to Canada. And that’s 15 years to the day minimum from the date of your car’s manufacturing. I imported and licensed the first smart roadster to Canada in 2019. I own several now. Further to the style of the roadster, most people who see a roadster in Canada think it’s a new model car that is just now being introduced. I was out running some errands today in my black brabus roadster and got stopped several times in parking lots for a chat about the car. -
This is from Autocar dated July 15 2024 https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/smart-2-due-electric-fortwo-replacement-shared-platform Smart #2 due as electric Fortwo replacement on shared platform Smart boss says "we're working on" a tiny electric city car, but the firm needs a partner to make it profitable NEWS by Felix Page 2 mins read 15 July 2024 Smart could give the green light to an electric Fortwo successor in a matter of months, its European boss has revealed, but it must be proved profitable before getting approval. The Fortwo – the firm's first model and one of the smallest cars sold in Europe – retired recently after 26 years of production, with no immediate successor lined-up, but Smart Europe CEO Dirk Adelmann has confirmed that plans are afoot for an electric replacement. "We are working on that one," he told Autocar. "The run-out of the current Fortwo was two months ago, now. It would have been great to have a direct successor - we don't, but we're working on it." He acknowledged the strong business case for a new-era compact city car – "not only in Europe but particularly for Europe, so it would make sense to bring it to sale". Proposals already exist for the city car, dubbed 'Project 2' internally and expected to take the #2 name into production. Addressing the potential confusion that could arise from it being much smaller than the #1 crossover, Adelmann explained that the number 2 has been reserved "on purpose" as it is an "iconic number" for the brand and should be used for a Fortwo successor. As the Smart line-up expands, he said, a pattern will emerge whereby odd numbers are used for SUV and SUV-coupés and even numbers are for "other products". But more important than defining the EV's shape and styling is ensuring that it can be sold profitably, and for that Smart is looking to identify a partner firm with whom it can share development and production costs. "The [city car] segment is not huge in Europe; the best year for Fortwo was around 100,000 units, and that's not enough to justify a platform," Adelmann said. "If you share this platform with partners – we're still in evaluation – then you can also share the investment costs and the production site etcetera, and it starts making sense. "The last thing we want to do is produce a vehicle where nobody is earning money, because that vehicle will not last for long. "We want to have a positive business case for us, for our retailers and in the end for our customers." Smart is 50% owned by China's Geely, which owns a range of car brands spanning a huge variety of sizes and segments. It remains unclear whether one of these could partner with Smart for a city car, but the closest match for the original Fortwo in size terms from across the Geely portfolio would seem to be the Geometry Panda - a three-metre urban electric car with four seats and a range of 124 miles.
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Electric Smart Roadster (and Fortwo) comeback on cards
brd posted a topic in In News & Entertainment
FYI this is as per an article today in Britain on Autocar. As the new electric smarts are manufactured in China it doesn’t seem likely we’ll see them in Canada due to the high duties which will be placed on Chinese BEV’s. https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/smart-roadster-comeback-cards-brand-expands-line Smart Roadster comeback on cards as brand expands line-up Smart's Europe CEO hints at plans for a sports car revival and "rest assured, it will be very compact" NEWS by Felix Page 2 mins read 18 July 2024 Smart is considering an electric revival of the Roadster sports car, which it made from 2002 to 2005, once it has launched a range of more mainstream electric cars. The brand now sells the #1 and #3 SUVs in Europe and will bring the larger #5 SUVto the market next year while it works to enhance the viability of an electric city car to replace the Fortwo - for which, the firm says, it would need to share a platform with another manufacturer. With that core line-up in place, the brand could start to shift focus to more enthusiast-minded, low-volume propositions and Smart Europe CEO Dirk Adelmann has told Autocar a resurrection of the diminutive Roadster sports car is one possibility. Adelmann said that when he and his colleagues were planning the new Smart line-up in around 2020, when China's Geely acquired a 50% stake in the brand from parent company Mercedes-Benz, “there was one very wild colleague who had the first drawings of a new Roadster” – and the prospect of bringing it to reality hasn’t been written off. “We have three great cars and none of them is a Roadster, but why not?” he said, when asked about the prospect of a comeback. Adelmann had a Roadster as his first company car so has a “very emotional relationship with that vehicle” and pledged that any EV successor would be true to the original’s spirit. “If we do a Roadster, rest assured it will be very compact – for sure a two-seater,” he said. The brand's current line-up is SUV-focused, but launching an EV sports car with a comparable footprint to the original Roadster – which was just 3.4m long and 1.2m tall – would go some way to taking Smart back to its roots as a purveyor of characterful and ultra-compact cars for urban environments. It would contrast markedly with the new #5 flagship, for example, which at 4.7m long and 1.7m tall is almost as big as a Land Rover Defender 110. But Adelmann told Autocar the brand's positioning is less related to the size of its cars and more about their unique design and positioning. "Smart is always unconventional, and I think this is what we again have shown with the #5. Nobody expected that from us. Nobody expected the #1 from us, which is also for Smart a rather big SUV. Nobody expected a coupé [the #3] from us... "But also if you look 20 years back, nobody expected the Crossblade," he added, referring to the outlandish speedster version of the Fortwo that Smart launched in 2002. "How could we dare to bring such a concept to the road? "Smart is much more than the Fortwo," he said, hinting at the potential for a drastic expansion of the brand's line-up, which historically was largely centred around its core model. -
Long gone. I have a non-facelift 451 unit kicking around if you’re interested in that.
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Not as much fun at parties as you obviously, ranting at the walls.
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About 43,000 smart roadsters were built. Don’t know where you got 47,000 from.
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To get back to the point of this thread, here is Jasper's video on what he likes and doesn't like about a 2003 smart roadster after the first year of owning one.
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He sure had good fun driving the roadster and is rather enthusiastic about the car.
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You miss the point entirely and conveniently which is you are comparing a 2013 car to a 2003 car, as stated in post #20. Guess what, the 2013 car is based on the latest technology at the time as was the 2003. So guess what, the 2013 performs better, but it's not a night and day difference.
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Intro: the first registered BRABUS smart roadster in Canada
brd replied to brd's topic in Introduce Yourself
Lucky you. I have owned two 450 cabrios which had leaks fixed under warranty. The worst was the 2004 pulse which had the cabrio top replaced under warranty, then a couple of years later a leak was repaired and the SAM replaced. Good thing that was all under warranty. -
Thanks for pulling up the Top Gear review. It’s been several years since I watched it and it is amusing. The 220HP, as well as the under 5 seconds, is as per Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Roadster and the 220HP is also mentioned in the Top Gear review. Yes it’s your AR 4C as in YOUR comparison car. Again, comparing a 2003 roadster to a 2013 AR 4C is comparing apples and oranges. Like comparing your 404C to the AR 4C in terms of performance.
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A production version of the V6 roadster coupe would have had about as much storage as the roadster (ie notchback). Your comparison to the AR 4C is apples to oranges as the Alfa was first produced in 2013 versus 2003 for the roadster V6 prototype ie technology changed a lot in 10 years. That said, your Alfa was 1100kg driven by 240HP versus a 840kg V6 roadster with 215HP. Your Alfa did 0-100km/hr in 4.5 seconds versus “under 5 seconds” for the roadster v6. Sounds pretty close to me.
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Actually, Brabus had a manual transmission option in the works for the roadster. It was the same manual transmission that it had tweaked and was standard equipment in the smart forfour (454) brabus. The intent was to have it as an option for the 2006 roadster brabus AND as a separate kit to modify existing roadsters. Unfortunately this was tossed in the bin when Daimler prematurely cancelled the roadster. Note that Christoph Maushardt, owner of Autohaus Maushardt (AHM) in Bruchsal Germany, THE top smart dealership in the world https://www.autohaus-maushardt.de , has a rare roadster with this prototype manual transmission in his car collection. Speaking of a bigger engine, I had forgot, but at the behest of Daimler, smart developed a prototype roadster coupe using the engine, transmission and rear suspension from a MB A class. The idea was to market what would have been the most powerful and expensive smart roadster in both MB and smart dealerships (at the time there were many standalone smart dealerships in Europe). Again this concept was dropped with the premature demise of the smart roadster. And yes, Christoph Maushardt has the only prototype which was built sitting in his collection. When you examine this prototype the exterior really doesn’t look different from the roadster, other than it’s unusual 18” rims. And a final note on a bigger engine, the smart skunkworks developed a six cylinder engine comprised essentially of two smart 3cylinder engines welded together. A prototype was built and racetrack tested and several more were then built in Ferrari red. Active consideration apparently was given to bringing the v6 roadster to market and one was even provided to the BBC’s Topgear program to review. Unfortunately this never came to pass likely partly due to the sky high price sticker, and the Ferrari red versions were collected and destroyed by the factory. The black prototype, which I examined in the smartville factory museum over 15 years ago, sits in the Mercedes Benz museum in Stuttgart.
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Further to how it feels to drive a smart roadster brabus, here is a review of a 2005 model done by a MB dealer in England in August 2022.
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Intro: the first registered BRABUS smart roadster in Canada
brd replied to brd's topic in Introduce Yourself
Here is a review of the 2005 smart roadster brabus done by a MB dealer in England last August. It gives you decent overview of this car. -
To improve the roadster acceleration always shift manually and don’t use the automatic mode unless you’re warning up the turbo when you first start your ride or cooling it off towards the end of your ride. The budget model of the roadster had the 61hp engine along with steel wheels and missing a few other features. You would definitely want to stay away from those. Note that a handful of roadsters were made with the diesel engines we had in our 450 smart fortwo’s sold in Canada. Imagine what the acceleration would be like in one of those. Which brings me to my second point, which is if you want to improve the acceleration (and torque) in a roadster you would want to have the engine remapped just like a number of us have done with our 450 diesels. If you shop around it would cost €150-250 plus shipping to have that done in Germany. There are a handful of other things to be done to improve the responsiveness and acceleration of a roadster ie replace the stock air filter with a permanent Pipercross unit, replace the intercooler pipes with silicone ones, replace the Turbo Induction Kit with a Forge Motorsport silicone version, and replace your exhaust with an smann unit. The total cost of all those, excluding the smann exhaust, is a few hundred euros plus an afternoon of your time to install them. To improve the aerodynamics, and acceleration, you might want to add a front spoiler for €100-250 plus shipping. So bottom line is there is no need to to replace the roadster engine with a Honda or Toyota unit if you want to improve the acceleration in your roadster. All that aside, most people find the roadster an exhilarating car to drive, regardless of the acceleration. It’s described by some as having a go-kart feel. Again, try it before you buy it.
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Intro: the first registered BRABUS smart roadster in Canada
brd replied to brd's topic in Introduce Yourself
Good for you! That's not my experience with 450 cabrios in Canada. -
See my comments on this above. Good point on prices of the roadsters going up in 2028 to 2031 when they meet the US 25 year rule to import them into that country.
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I disagree. Some prefer the non-brabus as it sits a touch higher on the road and drives smoother. The non-brabus version is available in more body colours as compared to the brabus (only black or silver unless it’s a rare edition version). Both versions are fun to drive and truly unique. Try it before you buy it. To each their own.
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Note that your car has to be at least fifteen years old TO THE DAY in order to be imported into Canada, otherwise it gets turned away by CBSA and you have to pay to transport it out of Canada. There were a handful of special edition smart roadsters which were built, more accurately rebuilt, in 2006. So you can now import any smart roadster to Canada.
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Intro: the first registered BRABUS smart roadster in Canada
brd replied to brd's topic in Introduce Yourself
Yes absolutely. How about your Canada1 cabrio? Did it have the leak corrected under warranty? -
Intro: the first registered BRABUS smart roadster in Canada
brd posted a topic in Introduce Yourself
Late last summer I imported the first smart brabus roadster to Canada. This car was purchased from the collection of Christoph Maushardt of Autohaus Maushardt (AHM) in Bruchsal Germany, THE top smart dealership in the world https://www.autohaus-maushardt.de This car was manufactured in spring 2004, making it one of the first bunch of proper brabus edition roadsters which were assembled. The brabus has essentially all the factory options which were available at the time. It has an all leather interior with carbon-fibre "look" trim and steering wheel. The car is tuned and drives far more aggressively than a regular edition roadster. It comes with a brabus modified engine, upgraded cooling system and exhaust (all resulting in a ~20HP increase), a lowered suspension, 17" rims plus front & rear spoilers and side panels. A previous owner de-badged the car except for the brabus logo on the gas cap and the left side mirror (plus the engine), which results in it getting even more stares on the road than the many it would otherwise get. The car is an out and out pleasure to drive. A couple of the pictures below are from when I first saw the brabus in the AHM warehouse and a couple were taken when I took delivery of the car at Autoport in Dartmouth NS. I'm looking forward to getting the brabus out on the road again once spring finally arrives.