first_drive_of_the_original_smart_car_smart_fortwo_passion_450¶

3 excerpts.

Excerpt¶

youtube.com/live_to_drive/first_drive_of_the_original_smart_car_smart_fortwo_passion_450 · p. 1 · Applies to: 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, #1, ebike

i have a dilemma everyone i'm running out of space for cars and i want another car we have a little bit of spice left hammer spikes we got i did it again [Music] she starts this is the first drive in my smart car happy days welcome to my smart 4-2 [Music] so the first generation smart 450 was actually not called the 4-2 originally which is called the smart coupe and it was launched in 1998 as a left-hand drive only model when i used to live at my parents house in birmingham i went to the official uk launch for the right-hand drive smart under covenant road in birmingham if anyone knows the cocktail road in birmingham we've had a great night free food test drives all beating and drive cars and i ordered one of the first right hand drive smart coupos and that one was a pulse so the grids are pure which is the base model the pulse which is meant to be a bit sporty and then you've got the one we're in today which is called the passion it's meant to be the top spec one it's got things like air con and stuff so why did we buy a smart in 2001 well basically because i can't think of any other car that drives like a smartie he's really unique from the handling obviously got a wheel in each corner so the handling is actually surprisingly good to the gearbox which is a bit of a marmite gearbox because actually it's a manual gearbox of an automated clutch system and in the smart that clutch system actually works quite slow now for me personally that's just characteristic of driving the car so i don't actually see that as a problem at all i just enjoy driving the car it can mean that the car lurches forwards when you're changing gear because no matter how hard you got the accelerator pressed when it needs to change gear it will actually deactivate the accelerator but there are easy ways to drive around [Music] that now the 450 is actually an internal code used by mercedes both manufacturers have internal build codes for their models the savers are no different now obviously the 4-2 is really designed to be a city car but they do handle quite well under motorway all i would say is if there's a good crosswind and you're passing any high-sided vehicles you will notice it because the wheels on the front of this car are actually narrower than the rear and it can mean that you start having to correct the steering more than you would in a normal sized car but again it's just characteristic of a smart so the second generation smart for two came out in 2007 and was given the build code 451 and that ran till 2014 and the current generation is coded for 533 there is also a convertible version a roadster version now actually going for a little village called walton on trench which has a narrow bridge it's actually seven foot six inches wide which in some vehicles means you have to think about it as you're going through there's quite a few mirrors that have been lost going through this bridge but i don't think we're gonna have that problem with this i don't think we're gonna have that problem with this smart car today

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youtube.com/live_to_drive/first_drive_of_the_original_smart_car_smart_fortwo_passion_450 · p. 2 · Applies to: 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, #1, ebike

[Music] so our smart car has a 0.7 liter engine it's got our three cylinders and it's turbocharged which has got to mean power and to be fair joking aside you do feel the turbo kick in it i i'd call it a sort of 80s turbo lag style of driving and i love it and it produces 61 [Music] horsepower so what's our plans for our smart fortwo not really sure to be honest at the moment i'm quite tempted to keep it standard because it's a 2006 car it's not been messed with whatsoever it's had no upgrades to it no performance upgrades nothing's been changed on this car at all in fact one of the key reasons that we purchased this particular camera was because of its history it's got a good service history it's got an excellent mot history with nothing more than two wiper blades and a simple seal needing to be changed the rest of the mot is absolutely clean and he lived most of his life sitting inside a motorhome how big was that motorhome i don't think we'll fit this smart car in our maximum folks but joking aside because it sat in that motorhome for most of its life the whole of the vehicle has not aged particularly at all because it hasn't seen much sunlight it's only been used as a holiday car obviously when the motorhome arrives at whatever destination they're at he's only got 18 000 miles on the clock and whilst i appreciate that low mileage cars don't always make for being good cars particularly as they get older the reality is this car has been stored dry and away from sunlight so that its service history and mot history kind of clinched a deal for me which did mean we did pay slightly more than what many of the smart cars sell for but we were happy to pay slightly more because of its history one upgrade i am tempted to do is the stereo now i wouldn't want to change the head unit because i'm a bit old-fashioned i want to keep the head unit looking original but the power it produces and the speakers that it's connected to could do with an upgrade in fact it wouldn't be difficult to upgrade them because the speakers that they fit in a smart car are better quite poor really they've got no they've got no base to them whatsoever i'd say they're tinier than a smart car but of course a smart car is built out of plastic panels now smart unsurprisingly because one of the things that smart did do quite well was come up with not with a large number of accessories and speaker upgrades was one of those accessories and the one that i'm currently looking at is where you add to i guess you call them boom boxes that the speakers sit in now this should improve the base of the speakers but i think it could also do with new speakers as well so if we do that and we put proper quality speakers in there as well that'd be a start now i'm also considering putting an inline amp onto the head unit now this in-line amp would sit underneath the driver's seat and then i guess the only extra would be probably put a base box in the back there is actually space in the boot of our smart for a base box and still you'd fit a few bits of shopping and stuff in there not that we're going to use this car to be getting shopping in fact of course we're not using this car as a car at all it's just yet another toy that i enjoy driving it's as unique to drive as the 2cv obviously it's very different to drive to r6 and 2cv they are both unique in their own little ways and that's why i enjoy driving both of them i have just as big a smile driving

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youtube.com/live_to_drive/first_drive_of_the_original_smart_car_smart_fortwo_passion_450 · p. 3 · Applies to: 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, #1, ebike

our 6 and 2 cv which if you've not seen our 6 and 2 series please check out other videos that we have on our 2cd as i do driving this marker [Music] the seats are very supportive actually they're very firm and i guess they've not particularly had any use so that would of course explain why they're still as new in fact the whole interior trim in this car is as new if i wanted to be critical i probably could find two tiny little marks on the silver that forms the tritium safety cell but i really would be being picky i have purchased cars with more marks on than this when they're a year old so this car is in absolutely great condition and that's why i love it we have electric windows folks the question is where have we traveled to [Music] all will be revealed that at this point it'd be nice for me to say i've got a a big barn unit and i'm about to fill that barn with many more cars but unfortunately i've yet to find a unit that would enable me to buy more cars because to be quite honest folks if i had more space [Music] i'd have more cars and who wouldn't we haven't named our smart car yet now affectionately they're known as smarties but unsurprisingly and i guess like we've done with our citron 2 cv because we named our 2cv dottie a lot of people name their smart cars so we have yet to come up with a name if anyone's got any sensible suggestions please leave those suggestions in the comments below [Music] i've just realized this is the smallest vehicle we own next to the largest vehicle now of course a lot of people buy smart cars to tow them behind a motorhome and at some point in the future we may do just that we can't do it at the moment of course because our two kids come with us and there's only two seats in our smart car but if we do ever tow our car behind our motor home i'm putting this sign on the back of it so that's it folks that was our very first drive in our new smart 42 we're saying you but it's about 16 years old but you know what we mean if you enjoyed the video please remember to give it a thumbs up and if not already please consider subscribing to a channel we'll put a link at the end of the video to do just that see you soon [Music] you