{"id":880,"date":"2025-07-14T10:01:54","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T10:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=880"},"modified":"2025-07-14T10:01:54","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T10:01:54","slug":"smart-roadster-spice-up-summer-with-a-1500-gem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=880","title":{"rendered":"Smart Roadster: spice up summer with a \u00a31500 gem"},"content":{"rendered":"

The pauses didn\u2019t help, nor not knowing quite when they\u2019d come. And there was more than one kind of pause to be experienced aboard a\u00a0Smart Roadster<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The most obvious, and persistent, was the between-gears interruption generated by the automated manual transmission. The Roadster\u2019s gearbox was not an especially speedy shuffler of clustered cogs and its six gears meant that, unless cruising, you\u2019d experience perpetual ascents and descents of its generous ratio set. And if you left the \u2019box to think about its own shifting, you\u2019d find that you were never quite ready for the moment when it chose to cut the power supply from the mid-mounted triple, even with familiarity.<\/p>\n

There were dynamic hesitations too. This was an exceptionally light, mid-engined sports car that ought to have changed direction like a dragonfly. Spear a bend, and in the first instant you\u2019d think it was going to do just that, the front wheels eagerly steering a new trajectory. But then the Smart\u2019s athleticism would start to evaporate. You couldn\u2019t call it understeer, but if you were expecting Lotus Elise balletics, well, you\u2019d have to buy the real thing.<\/p>\n

There was more, besides \u2013 the Roadster\u2019s traction control dropping the curtain on any on-the-limit expeditions before they really started. It looked like a sports car, and an exciting one at that, but the Roadster\u2019s cornerus interruptus methods protected its occupants from almost all kinds of on-the-road excitements. Still, after Mercedes\u2019 adventures with toppling\u00a0A-Classes<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Smart Fortwos<\/a>\u00a0accelerating hard enough to land flat on their backs, you could understand the caution.<\/p>\n

In plenty of other ways, though, the Roadster was the result of some admirably brave decisions. The bold\u00a0Smart<\/a>\u00a0project wobbled for more than stability reasons, the two-seat city car falling massively short of sales expectations following its (delayed) 1998 debut, but that didn\u2019t stop the Roadster project going ahead. Indeed, this dinky little device promised to deal with Smart\u2019s mild glamour deficit.<\/p>\n

It was also admirably true to the Fortwo\u2019s construction concept. There was the so-called Tridion safety cell, this the pressed steel inner tub that provided a structure from which to hang the suspension, powertrain and a colourful collection of composite body panels. The engine was the same lively 698cc turbo triple that powered the Fortwo, its 80bhp impressive for one so small, and less burdened than it might have been with only 815kg to shove along.<\/p>\n

The Roadster benefited from Smart\u2019s appealingly distinct cabin furnishing schemes too, chunks of its dashboard sheathed with non-reflective cloth. Much of it was grey, but there were multiple shades of the stuff and you could give the interior ambience a cheerfully spectacular lift by specifying orange cloth. And like the Fortwo\u2019s, the Roadster\u2019s instrument pods were so shapely that you wanted to pick them up.<\/p>\n

In fact, the entire car was so shapely that you wanted to pick one up and take it home. Especially if it was the oddly named Roadster Coup\u00e9 version, with its pertly curving fastback rump. The standard Roadster, this sadly the more common version, had a flat rear deck and a conventional boot, and looked more pick-up than convertible because it had B-pillars and a targa roof, like the Coup\u00e9. This electric roll-back fabric slice instantly opened the cabin to the sky, and if you stirred yourself, you could get out, remove the side panels, lock them into their under-bonnet slots and generate a real, windows-down breeze.<\/p>\n

So with all this temptation, how to overcome those disappointing pauses? For the transmission, do your shifting manually. Then you\u2019ll know when the pause is coming, just as you do in a car with a clutch. An optional sports wheel with paddles eases the process, and you can mitigate the jerks with some fancy (right) footwork.<\/p>\n

The dulled steering? There\u2019s less you can do about that, but you soon adapt, and you\u2019ll certainly enjoy the Roadster\u2019s low centre of gravity, unwillingness to roll and grippy grip. Which, up to a point, gets you around the ESP interference.<\/p>\n

Above all \u2013 and your reporter knows this, because his wife has one \u2013 this Smart is still great fun. It\u2019s surprisingly brisk, comfortable, reasonably practical and not too noisy, the sounds emanating from behind in any case throbbily intriguing. Despite its flaws, the concept car-ish Roadster is sure to become a classic, especially as there aren\u2019t huge numbers. Production ended after only three years and 43,400 units, sales undermined by the aforementioned issues, high pricing (for its size if not sophistication) and warranty costs that were alleged to reach \u20ac3000 per car. Water leaks were one reason.<\/p>\n

Right now, around \u00a32000 nets you the cheapest decent Roadster, which isn\u2019t much for the resulting entertainment. And at the top end, \u00a36000 will get you a low-mileage, hard-riding 100bhp Brabus, or a mint 80bhp survivor, a price that confirms their creeping desirability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The pauses didn\u2019t help, nor not knowing quite when they\u2019d come. And there was more than one kind<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-autos","category-life-autos"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=880"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":885,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions\/885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}