The Mercedes-engined smart car has conquered Europe, spawning the next generation of roadsters, four-wheel drives and other assorted fashion accessories from a cheap and simple city car concept.
While the roadster is undoubtedly fun, its dinky looks and three-cylinder, 698cc engine mean the sportier member of smart's city car revolution still walks a dangerous line between a fun sports car and an overgrown toy.
Of course, the Brabus smart is coming, but, by Mercedes' somber decree, this will not be the wild child many of us hoped for.
British company Euro Sportscars, which acts as the agent for German tuning company Digi-Tec, does not answer to Mercedes, though, so it was free to release the free spirit everyone knew was inside the smart roadster and coupe.
Digi-Tec is famous for remapping engines, and the genius with this particular conversion, which liberates 112 horses, is that it is not a replacement chip. It's a ghost program, undetectable by insurers and service departments alike....
Luckily the smart's sequential 'box also relies heavily on electronics. This allowed a relatively small company to correct Mercedes' glaring gaffe. The original gearchange was only slightly less frustrating than a tax inspection. Change gear approaching the 6500-rpm limiter with the F1-style paddle-shift, press the gas and wait, and wait some more. In automatic mode, it's quicker to wait for a bus.
This makes progress feel kangaroo like, as the gearchange finally kicks in and the car lurches down the road. Euro Sportscars has reduced the lag by 30%, smoothing forward progress somewhat.
Off the beaten track, the true extent of the character changes revealed themselves. Lowering the car by 30mm and fitting spacers and larger wheels formed part of a handling revolution. The Digi-Tec isn't a go-kart: It doesn't oversteer, but this makes it a supremely predictable car that will only understeer progressively even when pushed to irrational extremes, sliding around corners in easily controlled drifts and allowing turn-in on the brakes.
The speeds aren't great, but the drive is just as involving in a car this small and low to the ground. It's fun, it's accessible for everyone, and that's exactly what the smart was meant for.
The comical boost gauge now whirs all the way around to 1.5 bar, the 0-to-60-mph time has been chopped to a respectable 9.1 sec. and the smart will run to 128 mph without too many protests.
This conversion is a rare one in that it has not only optimized the smart's strengths, it has also conquered a weakness. The roadster was painful on motorway slogs before. Now it can handle them.
Rapid progress down winding roads remains this machine's forte, however, and sliding at 60 to 80 mph in the Digi-Tec returns the same rewards as a much more expensive and more powerful machine in triple figures.
Styling wise, the Digi-Tec machine is an ironic statement, an anti-cool trick that would have fashion types guffawing over a glass of dry white. The exposed "Tridion" frame, the silver smart trademark, has been doused with a liberal coat of shiny black paint to blend in with the plastic panels. The parts that previously defined the smart have, therefore, been deliberately revoked.
A chunkier bodykit has also been fitted and consists of lowered front corners, valances and rear sills. The team also uprated the brakes to cope with the significant dose of extra power. At ff,,f,,18,450 ($33,500) these thrills don't come cheap, and I'd still plump for spending a little more on the Elise. But when a decision between a sporting legend and an automotive Swatch becomes this close, Euro Sportscars must have made giant leaps in the right direction.