My Affair With A Topless Model

I bought LV51 YOY (Delilah - what else?) last autumn. After the sad demise of the previous love of my life, a yellow Pulse cabrio, it wasn’t long before I began to feel lonely so began to put out feelers for her replacement. I had been quoted ridiculously long delivery times for the spec I was after. What really annoyed me was that items like front fogs and speaker upgrade (both standard on the RHD model) would be extra on the LHD. Also, I wanted proper UK-spec front and rear lights this time so the cost began to mount. Nevertheless, I was all set to order a car when I happened to pass Smart East Anglia, a small (non-official) dealer in rural Framlingham, Suffolk. And there she was sitting demurely on the forecourt. It was love at first sight. Delilah was a near-new Passion and had all the extras I wanted including heated leather seats and electric mirrors. She didn’t have the paddle gearshift, which I rather fancied, but she did have side airbags. The price was extremely tempting so Delilah and I became an item.

Any regrets? Well, Delilah and I get on just fine but no relationship is perfect so if I had to name one, it would have to be, er, the position we adopt when we are close. Yes, I always seem to sit on the right. I am ashamed to say I cannot help compare Delilah with her predecessor. Having owned both LHD and RHD versions, I have to say I prefer LHD though I think some people exaggerate the differences. Yes, the seating position is a little higher but the Smart has so much headroom as standard it can afford to lose an inch or two. Other people (or maybe the same people!) have complained about the wiper pattern but, again, the difference is slight. No, what does annoy me is that the accelerator pedal on RHD Smarts is not floor-hinged. This would not be a problem if it wasn’t for the square electronic box of tricks it hangs from which, depending which shoes I wear, can catch my toe. I also miss the ease of parking LHD offered but apart from that, who cares? They are both smarts. One thing I have noticed is that one is more likely to get flashed/waved at by a LHD Smart driver! In the early pioneering days of LHD-only, pretty well all smarts in the UK were enthusiast-owned but obviously this has changed with the advent of RHD (present company excepted!)[pay]

So, what have I done to improve Delilah’s already attractive appearance? Well, nothing performance-wise (unless you count a smart club scoop and K&N air filter), most mods have been practical or aesthetic.

The first thing I had to do was to add a bit of sparkle to the interior. The grey plastic and seductive black leather may suit Delilah’s sophisticated up-market appearance but some would call her interior drab. Seriously drab. My previous cab also had grey interior plastic but at least it had blue seats. I re-sprayed the speedo, rev-counter and clock pods of that car yellow to match the panels. So, I decided Delilah’s pods needed a similar makeover but in silver. I wanted the pods to look like real metal though, not just silver paint (Delilah would find that just too degrading), so used Alclad lacquer. (I have a hobby of making model aircraft and this paint is used to obtain highly realistic bare-metal finishes of all types: aluminium, stainless steel, chrome, etc.) Sure enough, the result was just what I was after and, combined with a set of Michelak alloy heater and stalk knobs, Delilah seemed to appreciate her sparkly new jewellery.

Next was a set of tints. I had these on my first smart so again went to Autoshades of Sutton. £100 later (cabrios are cheap to tint as they have hardly any windows!) the car was transformed, Delilah now looked much more enigmatic and I loved the way her pods glinted seductively through her new shades. I would almost go as far as to say a Smart looks like something is missing without tints. Unlike some cars, where tints make them look like drug-dealers’ cars, I think darkened windows really suit the Smart as they clean up the styling and emphasize its attractive shape. Incidentally, I went for Autoshades’ ‘light smoke’, which is a 35% tint - any more is illegal and unnecessary in my opinion. With the 35% tint, the view out remains perfectly clear; also it is not glaringly obvious that the screen is un-tinted in comparison.

Some new shoes were next on the shopping list for Delilah. Yes, she was starting to exhibit expensive tastes but what the heck, she was worth it. My previous car had Sportivas which I still consider one of the nicest wheels for the car but I felt an all-silver smart of Delilah’s pedigree demanded a slightly ‘cleaner’-looking wheel, one where the front wheels did not particularly look narrower than the rears, so I went for Khans. Khan wheels will happily accept 195s all round but I opted to maintain the size difference recommended by Smart so run 175 front, 195 rear. Handling and looks are improved enormously and steering remains beautifully light. I hate brake dust on a nice set of wheels so set of the Smart Club’s Kevlar brake pads ensure Delilah’s shoes stay nice and shiny!

Being a RHD Passion cabrio, I already had the sound upgrade with tweeters and bass boxes as standard. These boxes really do improve things and should be standard on all Smarts (I may be right in thinking early cars had them?) but I still felt the sound was too much at the front of the car. So, I fitted a Kenwood single-CD head unit, and some rather nice Infinity 6×9s on a hard rear shelf (inexplicably discontinued by smart now) powered by a Sony amp under the passenger seat. I am not an ICE nut but for a relatively small outlay Delilah now sings beautifully. As I live very close to Top One in Kingston, I sometimes pop in on my way home from work to see if there is anything I can treat Delilah to, and recently noticed they had some Mk6 rear valences. Now, don’t get me wrong, Delilah’s rear end was perfectly lovely but, for £16, she now looks younger and even more beautiful.

And that’s about it, oh yes, apart from a wind net to keep Delilah’s hair in place. I conducted a test with the top down and side windows up. At 50 mph the difference is staggering; the turbulence around the back of the head and ears is reduced to almost none. At my age I cannot afford to lose any more hair!

What’s next? Well, a set of yellow panels may well be fitted by the time this is printed. Yellow is such a cheerful Smart colour and should never have been discontinued. And Delilah does keep asking me to treat her to some new clothes. Let’s just hope she does not suspect I may subconsciously be trying to make her look a little like her fun-loving predecessor!

Grahame Pearson

Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey[/pay]

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