People who own these Brabus Roadies usually have a plethora of perfomance cars in their garages. Famously of course, Gordon Murray of F1 fame had a Roadie as his daily drive for 15 years and its now kept among his collection of supercars. Gordon Murray was also invloved in buying the tooling from mercedes to continue production of the Roadsters under the 'AC Ace' name before the 2008 credit crunch killed it off.

What does the Roadster have to offer those of us with access to supercars and race cars... character, fun, rarity, individuality? Where my Exige is a great and serious track car, the Roadie is a great and fun road car and the Brabus version has a real sense of theatre about it. Unlike my Exige, it's easy to get in and out of it and it has big car luxuries and electronics.

The urgent 700cc, Chargecooled, Twin Spark engine provides high a revving thrumm reminsicent of half a 911 engine in strengthened Brabus trim, with abundant turbo chirps and chatter as it fires the 832kg coupe out of corners, while your bum flies along inches from the tarmac.

the Brabus Roadie sticks like glue around roundabouts and gives WRC thrills on twisty backroads at NON-WRC speeds using the paddleshift to pop through the Brabus 6-speed...

The gearbox has it detractors who compare the experience to modern multi-clutch automated manuals, but this is unfair, its got a gearbox designed n the 1990's the size of a toaster back there and you need to look even further back to cars like the Frogeye Sprite to realise the real design intent of the Roadie. If you dont like the auto, get a brabus and use the paddles!

..anyway, when you do get past thrashing the motor, the clever roof retracts behind the seats with the touch of a button, no clips, clasps or even the need to stop and you can get the air about you. If thats not reason enough to get a Roadie, how about 25000 miles out of tyres and brakes, cheap tax and about 50mpg!

Simply put you can afford to have this Roadster in your collection, road ready, and get an instant fix of petrolhead fun in the good weather. Good Brabus versions are becoming scarce though as they were only made for 2 short years waaay back in 2005.

I love them and nearly all my race car friends have at least one now. In the Porsche, I really cannot blast down the coast with my foot flat to the mat and the engine revving at 7000 like every petrolhead wants to in their head, but in a Roadster I can, and it 'feels' exciting, and fun particularly when a few of your friends are out there too :)

Click the link on the left for the highly recommended and ultimate resource if you've bought yourself a Smart Brabus Roadster Coupe

The Smart Roadster was only manufactured for two years. Around 2006 a consortium of car enthusiats and investors including Gordon Murray and some remnants of MG bought the tooling to make the little sports cars in Wales with a grant from the Welsh governement. The factory was setup and the designs below showed hints of the finished car, which was to be a stripped back Roadser, without the retractable roof and a larger normally aspirated engine, under the AC ACE brand name. It was to be a car harking back to the likes of the MG Midget or Frogeye Sprite, small light and fun and it would also relaunch the AC brand with other models to follow. Unfortunately the credit crunch of 2007/8 meant that funding for the project largely disappeared. This is my brief understanding of it, please research the subject more if you ar interested, its fascinating to imagine what could have come from this.