SMART 451 BRABUS (Pros and Cons)

[MrPoo]

Re: SMART 451 BRABUS (Pros and Cons)

So what if it's over the £35 band, if you can afford a possible £19k car are you really going to struggle to find an extra £80? [/B]

It's not about the extra £80, it's the principle of the matter! It's a Smart...it's supposed to be in the lower tax bracket because it's an 'economical' car (I use that word in the loosest sense of course) Also, the tax applied to each bracket is going to change, anything above the lowest is going to go up!

[Rose Chap]

Re: SMART 451 BRABUS (Pros and Cons)

At these levels of tax the arguements are somewhat hollow.

So what if it's over the £35 band, if you can afford a possible £19k car are you really going to struggle to find an extra £80? And most smart drivers are no the most economical from what I have witnessed - foot glued to the floor mode engaged!

What is the price of upgrading from a set of steels to some nice alloys?

I agree totally. As well as the less than light right foot factor, there is also the absolute certainty that any brand new car will lose virtually half its value in 3 years, even a Smart.

Therefore an £18K Brabus ForTwo now will be lucky to make £10K in 2011.

With all that factored in the cost of tax is trifling.

[madDan]

Re: SMART 451 BRABUS (Pros and Cons)

It's not about the extra £80, it's the principle of the matter! It's a Smart...it's supposed to be in the lower tax bracket because it's an 'economical' car (I use that word in the loosest sense of course) Also, the tax applied to each bracket is going to change, anything above the lowest is going to go up!

What principle? -it has a Brabus badge on it - when were brabus known for economy?

If you want that route buy a pure, and be sensible buy a secondhand 450 pure

The lowest bracket is £0 by the way, you can have that with the diesel.

[Big Performance]

Re: SMART 451 BRABUS (Pros and Cons)

Care to share?

Nope...not unless you come to me with money

[MINTY]

Re: SMART 451 BRABUS (Pros and Cons)

Care to share?

My guess...

http://www.superflex.co.uk/superflex.php

[Big Performance]

Re: SMART 451 BRABUS (Pros and Cons)

Nope

[Durham Smarty]

Re: SMART 451 BRABUS (Pros and Cons)

Well this thread certainly got lively :p

I've decided to pass on getting the Brabus... Its fast for sure off the mark but as some of you guys have stated I can easily get my Passion re-mapped to 88 bhp or more and given a Brabus kit and darken the headlights... Besides I recon a white Brabus looking Smart would be far sexier than a black standard Brabus. The dark head lights stand out more against white than black

Phil

[MrPoo]

Re: SMART 451 BRABUS (Pros and Cons)

Besides I recon a white Brabus looking Smart would be far sexier than a black standard Brabus.

True, when I was looking I was surprised to find it was only silver or black....boring! Esp as the silver looks more like steelite grey in the brochure...it's a real dissapointment in the flesh.

[H Palmer]

Re: SMART 451 BRABUS (Pros and Cons)

Well this thread certainly got lively :p

I've decided to pass on getting the Brabus... Its fast for sure off the mark but as some of you guys have stated I can easily get my Passion re-mapped to 88 bhp or more and given a Brabus kit and darken the headlights... Besides I recon a white Brabus looking Smart would be far sexier than a black standard Brabus. The dark head lights stand out more against white than black

Phil

Yep, white and silver with Brabus kit would be cool

[graeme]

Re: SMART 451 BRABUS (Pros and Cons)

I have no interest in how much my road tax costss, I am more interested in how the car performs. I cannot imagine how you can spec the new Brabus to £19K unless you want gold plated foor handles. Fuel consumption does not particularly interst me but 36mpg for a midget seems preety poor in my opinion. I'll phone Ian tomorrow as the instability is the key issue and I would like it resolved.

[Mike T]

Re: SMART 451 BRABUS (Pros and Cons)

And be sure to post "the answer" here.

[Big Performance]

Re: SMART 451 BRABUS (Pros and Cons)

"And be sure to post "the answer" here"

Nope

[Mike T]

Re: SMART 451 BRABUS (Pros and Cons)

Cheap bugger

[Big Performance]

Re: SMART 451 BRABUS (Pros and Cons)

I am not a charity.
I do development work on these cars, it isnt free for me to do this work.

[RoadTrackRace]

Re: SMART 451 BRABUS (Pros and Cons)

Care to share?

We'll happily share our solution.

We've been working together with Bilstein and Dutch spring manufacturers Apex (whom Bilstein use) and produced the Evil Twin 451 suspension kit. It ties the car down nicely without ruining the ride and I can report driving a 451 in Germany around a long sweeping Autobahn (the 8 between Pirmasens and Zweibrucken heading towards the latter) bend at about 115mph (on a very dry road I must add) and could not believe how stable the car was.

It seemed to defy all manner of forces acting against it and proved that R+D work can really be good fun. It was even more fun having a race with an unmodified Brabus 451 and leaving it for dead as his limiter kicked in at 95mph.

The price of the kit is £225 at the moment but the strong Euro is threatening to change this. We have the springs in stock and are currently waiting for deliveries of the shocks to complete the kits.

SRUS team