Opinion: the Smart Roadster Coupe is slow with a rubbish gearbox... and yet we still want one

Much like a particular yeast extract spread that can’t be named here for legal reasons, it’d be fair to say that you either love breadvans, or you can’t understand why someone would graft the rear of an estate onto a sports car.

I will happily admit that I am in the former camp. I love the look of a breadvan and it fills me with joy to know that cars like the BMW Z3 M Coupe, the Reliant Scimitar and the Lotus Europa actually made production.

And then there’s the Smart Roadster Coupe. Try as I might, I can’t shake the want/need to own one of these teeny, plastic-bodied sports cars.

Although, with its powertrain (a turbocharged 698cc three-cylinder engine mated to a six-speed automated manual gearbox) taken from the Fortwo née City-Coupe, it’s a bit of a stretch to actually call the Roadster a sports car. The Coupe iteration could only be paired with the more powerful 80bhp engine, but even that only allowed for a 0-62mph time of over 10 seconds. The gearchanges were also so slow and laggy, you could actually make a Marmite sandwich (whoops) before it shifted from second to third. Oh, and don’t get me started on the Fisher Price interior.

And yet, the Roadster Coupe is still attractive because it’s a properly lightweight little thing (it tips the scales at just north of 800kg) with mid-engined balance and a decent amount of storage space from a rear shelf and front boot.

Heck, even the name isn’t as silly as it sounds. Even though this big-booted version is a breadvan-coupe type design, it’s also still a roadster because Smart retained the choice of either a removable targa roof or an electric sliding soft-top. Clever.

Plus, actual Gordon Murray used a Roadster as his daily driver before the Alpine A110 came along, and he’s a man who knows a thing or two about lightweighting.

A quick glance at the classifieds today shows that Roadster Coupes can be picked up for less than £5,000, while Brabus versions with an extra 20bhp, excellent alloy wheels and a centre-exit exhaust start at roughly £6,000. Bit of a bargain that, no?