Smart Cabrio

There aren't many vehicles in the Auto Express car park that have a name. In fact, there's only one - this one. Odd though it may sound to those who regard cars as soulless lumps of metal designed merely to carry things from a to b, our long-term Smart Cabrio has become known as Silvia- on account of its bright metallic paint scheme.

Auto Express Car Reviews

By Mike Askew

February 2003

There aren't many vehicles in the Auto Express car park that have a name. In fact, there's only one - this one. Odd though it may sound to those who regard cars as soulless lumps of metal designed merely to carry things from a to b, our long-term Smart Cabrio has become known as Silvia- on account of its bright metallic paint scheme.
Now, if all this seems too ridiculous for you, you're probably the sort of person who finds the Smart itself something of an irrelevance. In the 11 months I've spent with our tiny two-seater, it has polarised opinion like no other vehicle I've driven. It isn't a car that leaves people undecided. Those who approve tend to be almost fanatical in their love for it, while those who aren't so keen would not drive a Smart if it was the last motor on earth.
The story of our car began last February when the cabriolet version had just been launched in right-hand-drive form. We paid our first visit to the main dealer a few months later - not for a service but for some body repairs after a near-comical sequence of events saw KY51 XOV roll backwards down a hill when the handbrake hadn't been applied properly. Unfortunately, the cabrio's bid for freedom was halted by a parked car which inflicted a fair bit of damage to the plastic panels.
While it looked an expensive accident at first, the final repair bill came to only ΂£273. What's more, the job was done in two days. Impressed by the service we'd received at Smart's Brentford outlet in Middlesex, we returned there for our first check, which was carried out with a whisker under 10,000 miles showing. Once again, everything went like clockwork and, after parting with a reasonable ΂£117, we were back on the road.
Particularly pleasing was the fact that the bill was explained to us in detail and that we received a phone call telling us the car was ready. Simple stuff, but you would be amazed how many dealers get these basics wrong. Indeed, the only complaint I could level at the servicing operation is the absence of courtesy cars. Given that Smart sees itself as a brand of the future, it's a shame its customers are still faced with a 10-minute walk to the nearest station whenever they drop their cars in.
The only other cost to date has been for a new windscreen, which collected a pebble-sized crack only days after our test car was serviced. Although Autoglass came to the rescue quickly and efficiently, the bill was a hefty ΂£327.20 - nearly three times what the service had cost us.
As with many Smarts, our car has done much more than just beetle across town every day. In its 11 months with us, it has travelled to deepest Cornwall, Scotland and Wales on many occasions, and has always behaved impeccably. Indeed, the only genuinely scary experience I have had while at the Smart's helm came on a journey I made from a snowbound Stansted airport to my home in Twickenham last month. With snow settling on all three lanes of the M11 in Essex and the traction control working overtime, there were moments when I was merely a passenger - keeping everything crossed that the Smart's electronics and anti-lock brakes would save me from the nearest ditch. Fortunately, they did and I got home six hours later without a scratch on either of us.
Ultimately, the Smart is a car which is greater than the sum of its parts. Sure, the chassis is flawed, the steering slow and the ride bouncy, but the city runabout has more character in its indicator stalk than all its rivals put together. It's engineered like a Mercedes and, as with the old Mini, is utterly classless. There'll be a big gap in the car park when Silvia leaves us next month.