is_the_smart_art_500_mile_review_of_a_smart_fortwo_cabrio_450_now_sold_but_more_¶

4 excerpts.

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youtube.com/hubnut/is_the_smart_art_500_mile_review_of_a_smart_fortwo_cabrio_450_now_sold_but_more_ · p. 1 · Applies to: 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, #1, ebike

is it art we think so so we have bought our smart which stands for Swatch Mercedes art to the British Iron Work Center in shopshire uh to see if it fits in and uh we kind of think it does uh so let's take a look around this car we have driven it hundreds of miles now what are our thoughts after hundreds of miles so let's start with a deep delve into what a smart actually is it was actually the uh brainchild of a man called who worked at Swatch watches uh they made very colorful watches he had a dream of a personal car that would be electric powered be very very tiny and like nothing else on the road he originally spoke to Volkswagen and they did some thinking about it but it was mercedesbenz he later went to who thought yes we can do this so this was a groundup fresh design it owes absolutely nothing to anything else has a three cylinder turbocharger engine mounted at the back and a six-speed automated transmission it's actually a three-speed gearbox with two final drives giving a total of six gears remember the super selective Mitsubishi a bit like that but all automated as a driver you can put it in automatic mode and just drive it without having to worry just like a conventional automatic sort of but it is just 2 and 1/2 M long uh which makes it very very small small indeed it is shorter than an original Mini although of course it does not seat four people that said there is a boot here at the back which is a bit of a faf to get into on a Cabret bit easier on the conventional hatch and as you can see swallows a certain amount of junk and as this clip shows you it actually swallows quite a lot of shopping and actually you can get a week shopping for a family of four in a smart just move moving to the front no access here at all these grills can come out to give access to the coolant to top it up and also the screen wash and to the wiper motor these can seize up on occasion but I have to say what gets me every time is just how cute these cars look uh I actually prefer the earlier almond lamps uh this is later peanut ones as they're known but uh yeah it's an astonishing thing the silver is what this car is on its uh V5 because these plastic panels can be interchanged you can swap them over um to change the colors if you fancy you could have several sets and change them as suits your outfit uh one of the things that was always very key early on was that these cars could be very much personalized to your individual tastes I quite like numeric blue but uh about 4 in quid I could probably buy a set of panels to make this one numeric blue it's tempting uh while we're at the front we'll just notice the incredibly skinny little tires 145 uh on the width there much wider on the back plenty of grip we better head inside jumping aboard and uh I straighten the wheel uh it's uh very gray and dull in here to be honest apologize for the mess we are very much on the road today um I smarts had a lot more color you could have these in different colors you can have this Trim in a different color they were much more lively when they started making them right-and Drive uh in I think it was 2002 2001 2002 for some reason they also made them incredibly dull in here which is a bit of a shame it definitely needs liven it up a bit we got a little smart radio by Grundig a CD player as a little odit tray a bit of a deeper odit tray than I realizer and uh this one actually has the optional air conditioning not that it blows very cold I think maybe we have a bit of a leak the compressor kicks in but uh yeah not the best we've got a little ashtray down here obviously we've taken that out so we can use the 12volt power outlet you can optionally get a cup holder just the one uh to go down there as well and uh what else have we got here oh is is that what goes into these things and it looks like you can move them around as well uh we've got twin airbags this been a slightly later one and uh of course we got the Cabrio roof uh which uh yeah isn't the best as we'll find out on the road test there are some issues we still got fun things like the little vents uh I think are nicely done look you can give yourself even extra demisting power if you so wish uh the little stubby stalks are a bit clunky I think they were carried over to the second generation and we don't have Flappy paddles some models uh you could operate

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youtube.com/hubnut/is_the_smart_art_500_mile_review_of_a_smart_fortwo_cabrio_450_now_sold_but_more_ · p. 2 · Applies to: 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, #1, ebike

uh the gearbox through paddles on on the steering wheel which would be a good thing here is the gear selector bit like a s we've got the key down here in the middle button for the uh roof if you press the button once quickly the roof goes back to its maximum position if you press and hold the button the back end will then drop and then you can remove these bars at the side but to be honest not sure there's much advantage in that we prefer having the flexibility being able to close the roof as you dve down the road but lots of space here uh the driving the seating position is offset slightly the rear seat goes further back so you got plenty of shoulder room it is a nice spacious place to sit but uh not necessarily the most comfortable the seats are quite firm and uh another minor downside is on the doors here and there you can see the button for the electric window switch it's this one here there is no button over here to control that window so so you you kind of have to lean over bit of an oversight they corrected in the second generation smart but they made so many changes throughout the Smart's life but this is actually a Mark 7 in 2006 uh with the the smart launched in 1998 but yeah it it's nice place to see there's um good visibility forwards although rear visibility compromised quite badly by the chunky pillars and on the Cabriolet the awful plastic rear window the second generation smart had a glass window on the Cabrio I'm not sure how they made it work but somehow they did so under here we find the three-cylinder engine this is the second generation engine 698cc 61 brake horsepower in this version uh the Brabus had um a fair bit more and I think you could get um a higher performance version as well this engine a lot more robust than the earlier one the first 600cc engine known as a bit of an oil burner it is an absolute pig to work on as you can imagine we got this tiny little hatch you can't even see the alternator uh we've done a starter motor replacement on this which was quite involved once you know what you're doing they're not so bad to work on you just realize you have to drop the rear subframe for almost any job but uh it's it's a nice little engine and it makes nice noises and because of the turbo it has surprisingly good torque characteristics but access definitely not H get in there a strong suit so it's just gone 9:00 in the morning uh we are jumping back in time and uh we're about to set off on this 100 mile drive today I didn't know we were in TR time traveling today yeah yeah yeah cuz we're already there in video time isn't that clever cool amazing so yeah we are setting off now and I'm not going to drive you're going to drive from here from here yeah you don't have to drive all the way we're sharing the driving today yes but I've never driven this vehicle well you got to drive it at some point yes but haven't got used to the controls well I thought you better do that on familiar roads it's going to be fine it'll be fine and that's going to be a separate video but uh we are going to um get on our way and uh make our way towards ustry here we go then first get I have to unlock the car even though the car is unlocked or it won't start and we do give it quit one of them you don't have to hold the starter it just automatically does its thing and uh I'll tell you a bit about what it's like backwards into reverse uh make sure there's no one behind us reversing not the most fun cuz the visibility is awful but at least it is small we can't work out if it's got power steering or not it sort of I don't I don't think it has but maybe it should have I don't know there we go automated clutch Cuts in and Away you go suspension is very very firm but thankfully they've um blasted over the huge pothole that was here it was absolutely terrible it was bigger than shmy it was huge right there we go as soon as we're moving pretty much into second gear I prefer manual control of the gearbox uh the automatic is very dimwitted and of course it can't predict you can look at a hill and know you need to stay in a certain gear here the car can't do that so often it changes a really inopportune moments so you better off in manual mode 50 uh that was 60 M hour it's not the quickest about 13 and 1/2 seconds if you really go for it what really slows you down is the gear changes uh just to get

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youtube.com/hubnut/is_the_smart_art_500_mile_review_of_a_smart_fortwo_cabrio_450_now_sold_but_more_ · p. 3 · Applies to: 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, #1, ebike

up to 30 is four gear changes and they're not very quick changes but although much is made of them the reason we're doing a really long-term test drive on this car is so we can really get a feel for it and in truth after a few hundred miles I'm I'm getting very used to the gearbox I'm learning to predict it even in manual mode the speed it'll take to do a gear change so uh it does get a lot easier the more you drive the car so I can see why an awful lot of people do love these cars and smiley Transit hello it's certainly not the perfect gearbox but every review of the smart ends up criticizing the gearbox and I think actually for its time it's not bad it's nice to not have to use your clutch foot especially in traffic around town you can just pop it in Auto if you're feeling lazy uh yeah it isn't the um awful awful gearbox but a 10-minute test drive will leave you thinking it is there are some genuine downsides to the smart uh the cavet is quite noisy if you drop the roof back even more uh you can kind of fold it down right behind you the wind gets noise gets even worse and and at that point you cannot hear the engine at all and given there's no rev counter uh there are optional accessories but sort of Bolt in here clock and rev counter it's really hard to hear what the engine's doing and when you're first getting used to the car um you really need to be able to hear it to know am I in the right gear cuz you get these arrows but this Arrow was just telling me to go into six gear at 45 mph which it won't pull the computer is not always right if you can believe such a thing so yeah you can fold the roof further back and then you can take these side pillars out but to be honest having done that it just seems to make it noisier and more unpleasant it's better to do this and then you've always got the flexibility of at whatever speed you can just press the button and shut the roof again unfortunately our example the roof doesn't seem to fit very well here so it's actually more peaceful to have the roof open than Clos Ed which doesn't really make all that much sense the other major downside is the ride Comfort it is very firm uh the first smarts had a transverse Leaf front suspension these later ones have uh mcferson strut but it's still rock hard I think to try and make it more stable if the body roll was too intense they would fall over more easily uh I think that's why they are so horribly stiff the same face also befell the Mercedes-Benz aass which also performed spectacularly badly in the elk test but really yeah we're liking this car a great deal actually I think more than I expected to but uh the Comfort the seats are also quite firm means I'm not a fan for it of it for long distance trips which is a shame sixth gear is particularly tall uh which means it actually goes down the road Road really nicely I think a fix toop one would be a lovely thing indeed uh for say Motorway speeds this is starting to get quite loud because of the wind noise mirrors are also a bit small and rubbish uh someone has fitted blind spot mirrors very wisely but uh yeah it's a strange one despite the fact the gearbox is in perfect and the ride Comfort is in very short supply I really really like it I just love the styling I'm prefer the interior styling of these to the Mark I with all the curvature going on and I prefer the exterior styling as well I think it's a really pretty really unusual looking car in terms of overall economy first tank to tank we did wasn't amazing we'll hopefully do another one on this test uh 52 MPG but that did include uh sometimes spent fault fighting when we had the over boost issue it therefore involved some over boost which would have used more fuel and uh yeah it's a little disappointing our Shard with its 1 L non-turbo engine I can get more like 55 56 in the same sort of driving like I said we'll see what this tank does they were never regarded as super Frugal machines I don't think the Diesels were they really can be but 45 brake horsepower I think means uh they are um a little sluggish I'm still ke to try one I've never driven a smart diesel little common rail triple be an

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youtube.com/hubnut/is_the_smart_art_500_mile_review_of_a_smart_fortwo_cabrio_450_now_sold_but_more_ · p. 4 · Applies to: 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, #1, ebike

interesting drive but let's carry on to our destination which you have already seen cuz that's where we started the video just makes perfect sense there is something else actually I forgot about the driving position actually there's a couple of things one is the steering wheel just feels too upright to me uh I don't like the angle of it I find it makes my wrists quite sore um that could be just be a peculiarity of myself the other one is the windscreen wipers which I realized we haven't tested in this video yet so let's give them we go oops may may have got the passenger with a screen wash and they don't come very high up the wind screen and the seat is not height adjustable so all this unswept area here is right in my line of vision Which is less than perfect the wiper again doesn't come very close to the edge of wind screen on the driver's side of a right hand drive one so it is a bit geared up for a leftand drive well there we are we've covered um about 200 mil today we've covered 500 miles at least since getting this car back on the road again so I feel very qualified to say I like it I know I know it has flaws I know the gearbox is not perfect but actually you really do get used to it the ride Comfort is well it doesn't exist there is is no ride Comfort uh and I find the seats a bit hard as well I like the seats I am starting to ache a bit uh my camera lady find it very comfortable indeed and we're certainly um having a lot of fun which you will be able to see in a future video but uh yeah I I just can't not love it it's I've driven loads of smarts every time I've sort of gotone oh but it doesn't do this well it doesn't do that well I'm still hugely drawn to them it must be the looks it's like a cute C puppy that keeps on pooing on the floor and and eating your favorite slippers you just look at it and instantly forgive it so that is very much um how I sum up this car the roof is kind of hopeless really um it very noisy open or closed and it makes it quite impractical I think a proper hard top smart is a better bet but to be honest today we've enjoyed been able to get plenty of fresh air so there you go it it is flawed it is also for sale um it will say in the video description if it still is but unfortunately we can't keep them all um it's quite cheap to tax it's only 35 quid a year but the insurance on top of everything else it it is all adding up and we've got other cars that need fixing so much as we do actually like it we probably need to focus on the family cars a bit more and indeed while you you can get shopping in it it just hasn't got enough seats but uh yeah we are very glad to have fin finally tick the box we have wanted to own a smart for a very long time and we did so huge thanks to the people who gave us this smart all that time ago huge thanks to Matt pink and his friends for coming and helping me fix this uh where I got really really quite stuck trying to get the starter motor changed and huge thanks to you for watching we don't know where this little car will go next but uh hopefully it has many happy miles left in it so thank you very much for watching don't forget you can head to the hubnut store and buy lovely merchandise sadly nothing smart related we'll see you in a future video farewell [Music]