I should also say that we're big fans of Brabus, whose monster-engined Mercs have thrilled us for years, and we thoroughly enjoyed the Brabus-modified Smart we had on long-term test back in 2000. If that car was a 'toe in the water' exercise, Brabus and Smart have now gone the whole John Smiths-style 'top bomb'. The two companies have launched an official joint venture, Smart-Brabus GmbH, to offer a range of official performance parts, accessories and styling addenda. Most of which appear to be fitted to this car.

It's all very nicely done, but there is just a whiff of Fast Car about the full-house Brabus Smart. The hunky, chunky, almost cartoonish stance, the deeply dished alloys... And the tyres! The fronts are mere 175/50 R16s, but the rears are 225/35 ZR17s. That's fatter than the rubber you'd find tucked under the arches of a Civic Type-R. If they were much wider they'd be in danger of meeting in the middle, like the roller on a lawn mower.

The wheels and tyres comprise the handling pack, which adds ΂£750 to the price of your Smart (this one started life as a Passion, basic price ΂£7965). Add another ΂£1500 for the 'performance pack', basically an engine chip and sports exhaust, which lifts the output of the 599cc 'three' from 61bhp to 70bhp, and around ΂£3000 for the 'body styling kit'. With all the other Brabus trinkets (aluminium gearknob, etc) you could spend over ΂£5500 making your Smart look and go like the one here. That brings the total to over thirteen and a half thousand pounds.
And you'd still only have 70bhp. OK, the 0-60 time drops from around 16sec to a slightly less slothful 14sec, and initially it feels quicker than that, stepping off the line pretty briskly, but once you're underway you have to work it hard to maintain a decent pace on the open road. And while it sounds endearingly throaty, in truth it never feels exactly sporty.

Blame the transmission. This car has a paddle-shift gearchange (a ΂£235 extra) for the sequential six-speed clutchless gearbox, and to be frank the 'box is a bit of a duffer. The changes are inconsistent - sometimes it changes acceptably quickly and smoothly, but other times it takes an age and it's jerky with it.

The steering's sharp enough, enhanced by the increased front-end grip, and it handles as well as you could reasonably hope for a high-rise rollerskate, on smooth tarmac at least. But it all goes to pot when the road's even moderately bumpy. Those big wheels, with their low-profile rubber, skip and hop to such an extent that not only is the ride spoiled but the handling seriously compromised. When you've got 70bhp and such a big footprint and still the traction control is called into play, you know something's amiss.

The Brabus tie-up will probably make more sense in an evo world when we get the roadster and roadster-coupe later this year, but this city car isn't for us. Yep, it looks kinda cute. You always double-take when you glance back at it. And of course you don't have to have all the bits. Like the Cooper S, your basic Smart is terrific just as it is. But plenty of people will be seduced by the bodykit, the fat tyres and the promise of more power. If this was Fast Car, no doubt we'd be 'bigging it up', but in the terms of this magazine it just doesn't gel.

Maybe it's because it can't live up to the promise of the looks - all mouth and trousers. The ride has been spoiled, too, though that's par for the course for most 'modded' motors. Most of all, it's a feeling that the compelling simplicity of the original concept is being muddied. It's that very simplicity and design purity that makes Smart sexy and so effective. Smart is cool for what it doesn't give you.