Smart ROADSTER LIGHT
Thought You Couldnt Afford A Brand New
Smart Roadster? You Obviously Havent Seen The Light Yet. Andy Enright Reports
The smart roadster is a car that may well leave you questioning your convictions. After an initial drive, I was convinced that smart had hit the nail squarely on the head and that this model would be a runaway sales success. Offering a semi-exotic feel with supermini wieldiness and running costs, the roadster looked set to be the drop top du jour outside every fashionable wine bar. Then pricing was announced and interest tailed off somewhat.
At £13,495, the smart roadster is not cheap. Factor in the aftermarket stereo that many buyers choose and youre looking at a chunky sum. If smart could offer the same philosophy but in a more cost effective package, they could well be onto a winner. It seems smarts marketing team have a keen ear.
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The
smart roadster light is all that and more.
The appeal of the smart roadster is very much based around its effervescent chassis, charismatic three-pot engine and surprisingly respectable power to weight ratio. The £11,995 roadster light keeps these fundamentals but does away with a few of the fripperies. The key difference is the roof. Whereas the roadster features a soft top that can be retracted at the touch of a button, the roadster light makes do with a matte hard top.
Of course, this means youll have to pull over to the roadside and get out in order to enjoy open air motoring but its no great hardship. The plus side of this is that it renders your smart a good deal more secure when parked on dark city streets. You wont have to worry about mindless thugs slashing your roof with a Stanley knife either.
"If smart could shave a couple of grand off the asking price of the roadster theyd have a sure-fire winner on their hands." Thats what we said when we first tried the roadster. Smart by name
The interior isnt quite as swish as the roadster, and the seats are a little less contoured and finished in black fabric rather than leather. The roadster light is wired for a stereo but comes with no sounds as standard, which many will prefer given that the standard smart audio installation is a rather average system. A decent aftermarket CD/MP3 system and a pair of beefy door speakers are more affordable than you may think. Theres a choice of six body colours offered although the TRIDION safety cell that the panels hang off is available in any colour as long as its black.
Perhaps this is why smart are being rather cagey when it comes to availability. Just 400 right hand drive roadster light models are scheduled for initial import and given that over 2,000 standard roadster and roadster coupe models found homes in the first three months of sale, its not difficult to see the quota selling out very quickly indeed. Faced with the prospect of a lengthy wait for the next batch of roadster light imports, its easy to see how many will be upsold to the full priced version. Motive power comes from a familiar source, namely the three-cylinder turbocharged 698cc engine found in the smart fortwo coupe, although in this instance it has been boosted to produce 80bhp.
This may sound small beer, but in a car that weighs just 790kg, it makes a fair fist of punting the roadster models up the Queens highway. Theyll accelerate to 60mph in 10.7 seconds and will top out at 109mph. Dont make the mistake of thinking this is just a smart fortwo coupe with a racy body.
Only 35 per cent of parts are shared between the two cars, although much of the interior will look mighty familiar to existing smart owners. One thing that is shared is the feeling of space inside. With the three-pot engine behind the driver instead of a pair of useless vestigial seats, cabin room up front is optimised. Elbowroom is the only concern with two burly blokes on board, but otherwise the little smart feel surprisingly, well, big.
Theres more than a hint of old
Porsche 911 from the view ahead, the twin humps of the headlamps allowing you to position the car very accurately. With ESP stability control to save you from the potential embarrassment of planting a 700cc car into the scenery, you soon build confidence in this tiny roadster. The engine whooshes, wheezes and pops behind your left ear and youll need to work the gear lever (or, if you specify them, shift paddles) in order to keep it in that fun zone between 3,000 and 6,000rpm. Smart have managed to engineer out much of the ponderous understeer that affects the city coupe quite so drastically, instead concentrating on a more enthusiast-focused set up.
There seems to be hardly any body roll mid-corner and the light weight means that the suspension engineers have been able to reduce the amount of dive and squat when braking and accelerating to create a very fun, stable platform. Perhaps the only fault is that its too good. So intuitive does it feel and so confidence inspiring is the chassis set up that you soon begin to yearn for more power. The
Audi that you left for dust in the last series of bends is soon filling your rear view mirror as the bends turn to straights.
Still, as smart reckon, this is a car where the focus is not purely on reaching the destination but also on the journey there. Yes, a
Citroen C2 GT will get from A to B quicker, but the smart roadster driver will enjoy the trip more. Stow the roof, savour the vaguely exotic feel of the car and youll have a ball. "If smart could shave a couple of grand off the asking price of the roadster theyd have a sure-fire winner on their hands." Thats what we said when we first tried the roadster. Smart by name
FACTS AT A GLANCE
CAR: smart roadster light
PRICES: £11,995 on the road
INSURANCE GROUP: 11 CO2 EMISSIONS BAND: 122g/km
PERFORMANCE: 0-60mph 10.7s / Max Speed 109mph
FUEL CONSUMPTION: (combined) 55.8mpg
STANDARD SAFETY FEATURES: Twin front airbags, ABS, Trustplus, ESP
WILL IT FIT IN YOUR GARAGE?: Length/Width/Heightmm 2500/1515/1549mm
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