Well i still cant decide what car, if any, to get and have been from 4×4 to now looking at a smart car as ive always liked the look of them and cant afford a z4 coupe. so my questions are; is it any good? Can i fit a bike rack? Is it too gay? How practical? IS it good value for money

Nice car, crap gearbox.

You understand that pretty much all coupes are tiny. Very little storage space, completely impractible if you have more than one passenger but huge amounts of fun? I had a Hyundai coupe which is a big car for the genre. Loads of boot space in one of those but it was still a pain to live with. I miss the power and handling but I don’t miss the fuel consumption, the inability to carry more than two adults, the comfort and I don’t miss looking up at everyone else.

Sorry but unless you put a hayabusa engine in it ( youtube it) then people will question your sexuality and or assume you are a hairdresser. It’s a small, slow impractical car with a crap gearbox. For the money you could buy so much more.

there not bad, but too much grip doesnt allow too much fun, and the gearbox is retarded.

You will be miles better off with a Mk2.5 MX5.

And anyone who disses them as being gay, disregard as they clearly know the sum of **** all about cars.

snotrag
And anyone who disses them as being gay, disregard as they clearly know the sum of **** all about cars.

I think if you buy an underpowered overpriced little poser wagon then you deserve all the stick you get. A friend of mine has one and I’ll happily rip the piss out of him until the glorious day he sells it. It is totally gutless, completely impractical and handles like shite. The only reason anyone would buy one is to pose, and of course because they know the sum of **** all about cars. It is the epitome of a hairdressers car.

Absolutely horrific car.

You can get a decent nick Exige for 15 grand these days. If you simply must have a hairdresser’s car the old Racing Puma is pretty good value these days.

This is what you want, for carting bikes about in:

surely an MX5 would be better for a proper driver anyway. Gutsy little engine on the 1.8’s, rear wheel drive, the imports have air con too. Plenty of drifting to be had on wet roundabouts.

There’s a Brabus version of that Smart. A bit naughty, from what i’ve seen of it.

There’s a Brabus version of that Smart. A bit naughty, from what i’ve seen of it.

indeed there is. it superbly demonstrates that you can’t polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter.

as someone who used to live with a sports car as a daily driver for 3 years, if i was in the market for a small, cramped car, with a tent strapped to it, the mx5 would be on my list and near the top. plentiful, cheap, reliable, coddled by their owners, rear wheel drive, with universally praised handling. but you’re right, they’re probably rubbish.

Sorry, the smart coupe looks like a 70’s kit car to me.

Ohh you don’t want that, you want this….

Just do what you want – the majority of us never drive within anything like the limits of a car for the vast majority of the time and any inpractibility is far outweighed by how much you enjoy being in and driving the car you want.

So – just get the car you like, not the car that someone who once read a copy of Top Gear magazine in the barber’s so thinks he knows everything there is to know about cars tells you to buy.

(And I have had MIni 1275GTs, Pumas, XR2s, Nova SRis, Clio RSis, Astra Coupes and my present car is an Audi TT) 🙂

No, no, no, no.

They are for hairdressers and the like who want to pose and have no understanding of driving.

Get an MX5, Elise, or even an Audi TT, Mini or anything else that is designed for driving enjoyment rather than posing

There are big coupe’s around – ask WCA for advice 🙂

If you like it – get it.

Don’t let us put you off. The gear changes can be improved with an ecu remap. They’re great handling cars, but not overly practical.

I think if you buy an underpowered overpriced little poser wagon then you deserve all the stick you get. A friend of mine has one and I’ll happily rip the piss out of him until the glorious day he sells it. It is totally gutless, completely impractical and handles like shite. The only reason anyone would buy one is to pose, and of course because they know the sum of **** all about cars. It is the epitome of a hairdressers car.

Is that a comment about the MX5, only that’s what I thought Snotrag was referring to?

MX5s are great fun, what with them actually being a car (albeit a girls one…), rather than something that Noddy would drive, like the Smart.

They’re great fun to drive, Gordon Murray the guy behind the McLaren F1 car loved his:

http://www.evo.co.uk/carreviews/evolongtermtests/56574/smart_roadster_brabus.html

Some people talk a lot of hot air, and suggest cars are somehow gay its because they are not self confident enough to get away with it and perhaps its because they question their own sexuality and somehow worry that if they bought this car that they secretly desire people will realize that their hidden secret that they really are gay. But they should just come out and get on with the rest of their life.

There’s a chap here selling a Smart roadster for £6k. I was under the impression that they were good fun from the go-cart perspective. That is, small, low and simple rather than being really fast or high performance.

Kind of like riding a fully rigid singlespeed?

Never driven the coupe but I had a roadster for a few days when I worked on an in-house magazine for Mercedes as a motoring editor.

I have to say, it was a fun fun fun little car. I remember commenting at the time on its ability to ‘lower the thrill threshold’ – you’d be blatting along, screaming round bends with a big grin on your face, but then you’d realise that there’d been a farmer in an old Series 1 pootling along right behind you for the past few miles.

Gearbox was a big disappointment, and the turbo valve made a very annoying squeak on the overrun.

They look cool though, and you’ll always get let out of junctions in a car like that. Give it a test drive.