There Was A Time When You Could Spend Well Over $30,000 On A New Smart Fortwo, And This Is What You Got For Your Money

When the Smart Fortwo launched in the United States in 2008, it hit with a base price of $11,590. For that dough, you didn’t get an air conditioner, power windows, or even a radio. A handful of years later, Smart launched a halo model that was the exact opposite. So long as you had well over $30,000 to burn, you could get the absolute apex of Smart Fortwos in America. This is the Smart Fortwo Brabus Tailor Made, the rare Smart where the only limitation is the engine, your imagination, and your wallet.

For decades, the wizards at Brabus have been putting a magic touch on high-end German cars, namely Mercedes-Benz, Maybach, and recently, Bentley. Brabus has long tweaked Smarts, too. Usually, buying a Smart with a big black “B” on it means you’re getting better handling, more horsepower, more luxury, and a Smart that makes a statement that’s a little different than “I’m cute.”

Sadly, when Smart USA brought Brabus to America in 2009, it left all of the horsepower shenanigans in Europe.

America’s version of the Smart Brabus mostly amounts to a cosmetic package with flashy wheels, a body kit, a sporty suspension with a mild drop, a center-exit exhaust, and a few metal bits inside to go with your leather seats. Still, even without the extra go, America’s Smart Brabus cars looked slick, and they remain revered in the American Smart community today.

At first, the “regular” Fortwo Brabus was the top of the pile, the baddest, most expensive Smart you could buy in America. Then, as part of Smart’s refresh in the 2010s, Brabus offered something a little crazy to Americans. This violently pink car is one of them.

Have It Your Way

The 2009 Smart Fortwo Brabus model that I mentioned above was technically a single-year model. Smart USA said it would sell 1,500 of them, and that’s all. It’s unclear just how many Brabus were sold that year, but Smart USA held to its word, and the Brabus did not return for 2010. Smart USA then went without a Brabus for two additional model years.

Then came 2013, which was a big year for Smart USA. That year, Smart USA announced a big facelift. The Fortwo had gotten an interior facelift, new colors, two additional airbags, and a better warranty in the two years prior, but now the car was finally getting an exterior styling change, too. In 2013 (earlier for European markets), the Fortwo got a new grille, sportier bumpers, and slightly more sculpted side skirts. It was a nice refresh, one that gave a slightly new look to a body much of the world had seen since 2007.

The big news for America was that Smart fans finally had more choices again. Smart was already slinging an all-electric version of its iconic city car, and now the Brabus made a triumphant return. But this time, Smart USA had a few tricks up its sleeve.

If you didn’t like any of the colors offered from the factory, Smart USA had been running a program called “smart Expressions” where you could customize your Smart to have any color or graphic you want. If you wanted Hello Kitty on your car, Smart USA was happy to do it for the cost of the $1,350 wrap, plus $300 installation. If you wanted a clone of Ford Mystichrome, Smart would do that for a starting price of $1,550, plus $100 per hour of installation.

If you couldn’t choose a custom color or wrap, Smart USA let you choose from 93 colors or 35 pre-designed wraps from its existing catalog.

That was neat enough, but what if you wanted to go hardcore with it? What if you wanted multiple colors and wanted to slather them all over your interior or even wheels? For that, you had only one choice: The Brabus Tailor Made.

Here’s how Smart described the program when it first launched in Europe:

[S]mart’s tailor made programme aims to meet the requirements of all those customers who want to drive a smart fortwo customised to their own ideas in line with the principle “Anything is possible”. To accomplish this smart is offering extensive special equipment options in addition to the normal equipment variants. For example, customers can choose the exterior colour, types of leather and cabrio soft top colour from a wide range. There are barely any limits. The following are available:

Paintwork in around 23,000 different colours
Leather in around 100 colours and exclusive design variants
Several cabrio soft top colours
The whole smart and smart-BRABUS range of accessories
Those who feel overwhelmed by all the possibilities can choose from attractive “tailor made” packages.

The tailor-made models are made-to-measure in the truest sense of the word. This means that not only are they individually made; they are customised at the factory with masterly craftsmanship using top quality materials and parts tested by the manufacturer – of course with a full manufacturer’s guarantee.

In a glorious change from the usual, Smart did not nerf the Tailor Made program when it came to America. Just as Smart promised, you could choose any color you wanted, have it applied to the car any way you wanted, and then combine it with the full set of Smart and Brabus options. If you wanted to make a Smart Fortwo version of the Volkswagen Golf Harlequin, you should have been able to do that! Really, the only limit was how much you were willing to pay.

Likewise, if you couldn’t really figure out what you wanted to do, Smart USA also sold “default” versions of the Brabus Tailor Made, like this beautiful cocoa version:

Honestly, the press release undersells how awesome the Brabus Tailor Made cars are. I’ve seen a few of these in person, and it’s like looking at a completely different Smart. The paint quality is amazing, and the color is rich. Inside, the Tailor Made leather is leagues better than the leather offered in the standard car. Everything feels so soft, so supple, and high quality.

The best comparison I could make is that it’s like Smart looked at the Aston Martin Cygnet’s ‘Q by Aston Martin’ program and thought, “yeah, we can do that.” Autopian co-founder Beau Boeckmann has a Q-customized Cygnet, and its leather gives off a pleasantly intoxicating aroma. The Smart Fortwo Brabus Tailor Made had the same thing going on! Smart was even willing to slather that leather all over the dashboard.

The catch was that you had to be pretty loaded to get one of these Tailor Made deals. In 2013, the lowest Smart Fortwo was the Pure at $12,490. A step up was the Passion Coupe at $14,890, and the top of the normal trims was the Passion Cabriolet at $17,890. The Brabus package was a $3,500 lift on top of the price of a Passion Coupe or Passion Cabriolet.

A Brabus Tailor Made started off as a regular Brabus. Let’s say you start off with a convertible. That’s $21,390 before you choose your color or any additional options. Brabus would then charge thousands for all of your custom colors. Click here for an example invoice from one custom Brabus Tailor Made build that added up to $36,215 before fees. Why yes, that’s basically three times the price of a Pure!

What You Get In Smart’s Old Halo Car

While it was a hefty price to pay for a Smart, what you got out of the other end was essentially a one-of-one car. Well, assuming nobody else copied your exact build, anyway. That’s what the seller of the 2013 Smart Fortwo Brabus Tailor Made for sale on the MB Market claims. So far as I can tell, there are no other Tailor Mades in this configuration in America, and that’s exciting!

Whoever ordered this car originally went hard on a metallic pink theme. The exterior is standard-fare Brabus, plus a whole lot of pink from top to bottom. Check out how rich this color is!

The real magic happens inside, where there’s a glorious mix of pink trim and white leather. I love the attention to detail here. Everything from the turn signal stalk cap to the trim around the shifter was more of that metallic pink. Even the speaker trim rings are pink!

The build of this car is a bit fascinating to me. In Brabus guise, a Smart comes with black leather heated seats, power windows, power mirrors, air conditioning, some metal trinkets in the cabin, and other minor bits. Sadly, only the European versions got a Brabus-specific gear knob and Brabus-branded instrumentation. Options for this vehicle would have included an alarm system, cruise control with a trip computer, an upgraded stereo, ambient lighting, and some other accessories. The original orderer of this vehicle opted against the cruise control and also skipped out on the alarm system. But they did get the ambient lighting and a cargo cover.

I’m so used to seeing Brabus cars with basically every option box checked, so I was initially surprised a few bits were missing. However, I do get the decisions on the option sheet here. Due to technical limitations involving the extra airbags that later North American Smarts had that the European ones didn’t, Smart USA was unwilling to equip a car with both cruise control and flappy paddles from the factory.

Thankfully, you can always get an aftermarket cruise control and keep the flappy paddles.

I also understand not ordering an alarm system. The alarm systems in North American Fortwos are notoriously sensitive and will basically start blaring if a stiff breeze hits the car. However, this does mean that, while you might spend more than $30,000 on your flagship Brabus Tailor Made, there will forever be blank buttons on the button bank (above).

At some point in this car’s past, someone replaced the factory touchscreen stereo with a cheaper aftermarket unit. The install looks good, and I bet it does offer more features than the dated factory unit. Personally, I would have gone for a more factory look with a unit that didn’t have piano black plastic.

When this listing went up, the MB Market claimed that this car has 101 HP, but that’s not actually true. Only the European version makes that much power.

When Smart launched in America, it only certified a single engine and a single tune of that engine. Every gas-powered Smart sold from 2008 to 2015 (known to Smart fans by its chassis code of 451) has the same Mitsubishi 3B21 999cc three-cylinder engine with 70 horses and 68 pounds of twist on tap. Every one of those Smarts also comes with the five-speed automated-manual transmission. This flagship Brabus Tailor Made is no faster than a base-spec Pure.

To the credit of the MB Market, the platform edited out the error this morning.

It Really Was Very Expensive For A Smart

An order sheet is not shown on the auction page. However, I ran the VIN to get the option packages on this Smart. It has a $3,500 custom body color package, a $2,690 safety cell color package, $3,800 special leather, $1,050 to have the pink inside the car, $190 for ambient lighting, $120 for a tachometer, $1,600 for the sound system and a couple of other odds and ends. That’s at least $30,000! It’s even worse when you plug it into an inflation calculator. When new, this car was the equivalent of $46,401 today.

The car is noted to have two owners on record and only 14,226 miles. Based on the admittedly few sales that other Brabus Tailor Mades have sold for, I wouldn’t expect this one to sell for anywhere near its original sticker price.

Whoever buys this car is getting one of the rarest variations of the Smart Fortwo in America. While I cannot confirm if it’s truly “one-of-one” as the listing says, I’d bet money on there being fewer than 10 hot pink Brabus Tailor Mades in America. The buyer will also be able to say with total honesty that anyone who looks at the car is gazing upon what more than $30,000 of Smart Fortwo looked like in 2013, and honestly, that’s still pretty wild. This is what the absolute peak of Smart looked like 13 years ago.

It is also a dream-spec Smart for me. I’ve wanted a hot pink and white Smart for longer than a decade now, and this is basically the car I’ve had in my dreams for so long. Personally, I would have made the dashboard white leather and the steering wheel pink — I’ve never said I had good taste — but this is close enough! Sadly, I cannot picture myself spending over $10,000 on a 13-year-old Smart, even if it is my Holy Grail. But I have no doubt that whoever spends that kind of dough will love their unique pink ride.

Top graphic image: MB Market Listing