So Nearly The Best
by David Finlay (08 Jul 05)

At the turn of the century, smart was the fresh young manufacturer of quirkily-styled and strangely-named little city cars. The idea that the same company would, within five years, have produced a roasting-hot hatchback would have caused many observers to choke with laughter. And yet here it is.

You must surely know by now that the forfour is, in all mechanical essentials, a Mitsubishi Colt. Specifically, the forfour Brabus is made of the same stuff as the Colt CZT, with which it shares the same turbocharged 1.5-litre petrol engine. But while Mitsubishi has so far been content with 150bhp from this unit, smart has gone several steps further and extracted 177bhp. And the forfour deals with its power far more expertly than the Colt does.

As a result, the two cars are barely worth comparing in the marketplace. With suspension and brakes that seem to struggle to keep up with the engine, the Colt isn't a truly satisfactory hot hatch. The forfour, in contrast, can mix it with the Clio Renaultsport 182 Cup, the Honda Civic Type-R, the MINI Cooper S and the Peugeot 206 GTi 180. In fact, if it were not for one very serious flaw, there's a case for saying that the forfour would be the best of the lot.

We'll come to that shortly. First, a word about the straight-line performance, which is more or less beyond criticism. The forfour is not quite the most powerful hot hatch on the market, but of all the ones operating at the same performance level it's the only one - apart from the Cooper S - which uses forced induction.

This means that, despite its size, the engine is by no means a screamer. The car is docile in gentle motoring, and almost disappointingly quiet (though at some engine speeds there's a resonance in the passenger compartment which can give you a headache in two hundred yards). 90% of the maximum torque output is produced between 2300 and 6100rpm, so a surge of acceleration is never more than a twitch of the right foot away.

More . . .

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