Living With A Roadster

I collected our (mine & Tracy’s My wife) roadster from smart Coventry on the 25/06/2003. The colour was picked after much deliberation as I wanted yellow and Tracy wanted red so as we couldn’t talk the other one round we went for the black.

Upon collection I made a couple of mods, which consisted of the fitment of a JVC single C.D player in conjunction with a facia adaptor, which I purchased off Smarts r us along with a set of carbon fibre style mirror covers and a couple of the roadster key rings.[pay]

I also fitted a set of the wheel centre caps and a pair of black velour carpet mats these were supplied by smart of Coventry (a big thanks must go out to Suzanne and Nigel at this point for all their help) along with a pair of matching black roadster baseball caps.

One thing that struck me upon collection of the car was the very high quality finish of the paintwork something that is sadly lacking these days!

The first night we had the car we managed to clock up over 60 miles showing the car off to family and friends I’m afraid. (Well we were very pleased and excited about our new toy.)

The fist weekend we had the car was the weekend of the smart owners club meeting at Billing Aquadrome, we attended on the Sunday as I was working on the Saturday we very made really welcome and people said a lot of nice things about the car thank you all.

During the night before the car was mistaken for a T.V.R! by a guy working in a McDonalds we went to, needless to say I wasn’t that upset.

The car is a real joy to drive even making the Monday morning drag to work a pleasure and fuel economy is superb.

The handling of the car is excellent, this was something I had been a bit worried about as my last car was a focus, which are renowned for being a drivers car, but the roadster has surpassed this and we are revelling in the drive that the car produces.

When I took delivery of the car I noticed that the rear lamps fitted were incorrect for usage in this country, upon further investigation I discovered that the wiring was correct so when I select reverse I get a red light and the rear fog illuminates white (I’ve painted the bulb as a stop gap and smart Coventry are awaiting the release of two pairs of lamps (their demo has the same fault), they had noticed the fault on the P.D.I and ordered the lenses. They have been informed that the lenses should be here in early august and will be rectified under warranty.

At the time of writing this the car is three weeks old and has over 880 miles on it (all great fun especially the cat & fiddle run last Sunday) Thanks to all who were there it was a great day out, if you get a chance to do this run do it the roads are fantastic.

The next planed run is the L2B although I am toying with the idea of the Blackpool Run.

SUMMARY 

The car is an absolute pleasure to own and drive, the two-piece roof is easy to use and nice and light, boot space is good up front and not as bad as Jeremy Clarkson said in the rear, the cabin is roomy although the passenger seat could do with a bit of under thigh support as long journeys cause leg ache! And getting in and out is an art form!

All I can really say is if your thinking about a roadster go ahead you won’t be disappointed.  Anyway bye for now see you at L2B.

Submitted By:

Matthew Beaumont[/pay]

Related Articles

• No Related Articles.