Greetings, petrolheads! Today’s post is a bit of fresh air, as it has nothing to do with Smarts. In fact, it’s no car test whatsoever. It’s my personal view as an Industry insider and lover about the strongest – and most lucrative – trend in recent years: The SUV boom. This is a trend which, like Coca-Cola and McDonalds, we Europeans (and a great deal of other areas in the World) had to copy from the USA. However, if there is some point in many of those products – McDonalds brings cheap food to many poor areas, and Coca Cola’s ability for unclogging pipes never stops short of surprising – there are very little reasons to buy an SUV. The upsides are easily recognisable: a slightly taller, four-wheel drive car can be useful on icy roads or for towing capabilities, the very same things any good off-roader can. In comparison with these, the SUV is slightly less resource-wasteful on the road and, in theory at least, should have the edge on maintenance costs, due to the simp...

Cheers, petrolheads! Today’s review regards the starting point of the Smart range: the very first generation Fortwo (aka City-Coupé), with a petrol engine and Passion equipment level. The, then, City-Coupé, came to market in the end of 1998, the range comprising three equipment levels - City&Pure  (basic), City and Pulse (sportier) and City&Passion (more luxurious) - and two versions of the same engine, a self-denominated turbo-suprex (45 and 54 PS). First on selected European markets, expanding to most of Europe by the year 2000. By then, a Cabrio version was added to the range, as well as a diesel CDI version. As everything revolutionary, market response was very cold. Prejudice was the dominant factor, not helped by the fact that it only took two. If it’s true that most people drive alone most of the time – Smart’s own studies had shown an average of 1.2 person per car in west Europe – it’s also correct to assume that most people need, sometimes,...

Hello Petrolheads! Today I bring you a short test of the latest Mercedes-Benz C  180 d, aka Diesel or BlueTec or CDI. I decided that, despite only having driven the car for 3 days and around 500km, it was worth to write about it; plenty has been said and written about the fact that Mercedes-Benz now uses Renault engines – mostly regarding A-Class’ 1.5 – but regularly the reviews tend to show a very personal perspective, which I believe doesn’t help many real customers, who don’t care from which manufacturer the engine comes from. This review is focused on the engine dynamics, as most of the drive was done on the motorway. The tested car comes with Renault’s 1.6 diesel, downgraded to a modest 116PS/ 85kW and 280Nm. On a cold start, it rattles as loudly as Merc’s own 2.1L, albeit the note being slightly higher pitched. Once warm it improves and becomes reasonably refined, but a hum is always in the background. The tested car was equipped with plenty of opti...

Cheers, petrolheads! This year’s first post regards, once again, the Smart Roadster. It has became some sort of tradition to start the year with such a post but, as last year this time, there are relevant news regarding my garage. I’m now the very proud owner of three Smart Roadsters, after just having added a Roadster-Coupé 60 to the collection! I must confess that I bought it because of the attractive combination of price/ use/ configuration (and because I need a toy to drive on the Alps before I roll the Panda over…). I’m far from being the biggest admirer of the fastback rear, which many (most, from what I noticed until now) people argue make the car’s profile look svelter, while adding some practicality to the mix. But beauty is on the beholder’s eye, and to me, this version only works out if everything is black. The mix of many colours isn’t to my taste, and the fastback also makes the car look taller than the standard Roadster, so a bit less purposeful. ...

Hello once again, petrolheads! It’s finally the time to review my latest acquisition: the Brabus tuned version of my beloved Smart Roadster. My passion for the Smart Roadster is well known and documented, but ever since I bought my first Roadster (the 60kW intermediate variant), I wondered: how much fun is the top of the range Brabus? I mean, with those looks it’s impossible to be something other than phenomenal, right? Sub-1,2m in height, 17” wheels with massive tires, leather-clad interior with aluminium touches and 19 horsepower more … It simply looks irresistible. The latest versions, called Xclusive, add a couple of touches to the standard Brabus, whose specification also changed with the appearance of this top equipment level (then it also appeared a cheaper, equipment-stripped Brabus Finale). However, despite prices starting at a hefty 27k € (in Germany), the options list was still long. For instance, not every single Brabus Xclusive Roadster I have seen has – wait ...