November 5, 2005 Make no mistake – the smart fortwo is a deceptive automobile. Drive it around town and it’ll minimise the damage to your bank balance and environmental footprint at the same time. But point it and squirt it and it becomes a go-kart, albeit a high rise one. The official Brabus-tuned version adds considerable horsepower, and with a healthy aftermarket of go-fast gear, you can stretch the 60 bhp three cylinder turbocharged Smart motor to around 100 bhp delivering awesome acceleration.So what happens when you take the 660cc motor and put a four cylinder 1000cc motorcycle racing engine into it? Like a 180 brake horsepower GSXR engine similar to that which Troy Corser used to win the 2005 World Superbike title in a canter. With three times the power to weight ratio pushing the smart around, it suddenly moves the bantamweight smart’s performance and handling into the class of a WRX Subaru or Mitsubishi Evo. With its heart transplanted, the smartuki shaves around 3 seconds off it’s quarter mile time (12.4 seconds), has a 0-100 km/h time in supercar territory, and tops out at 132mph.
Bill Allen of Alien Engineering and Chris Alanson of Z cars were working on the production of the GSXR1000 engined Smart Cars, but Z Cars was so snowed under with work that Allen has bought the entire project – tools, jigs, Jigs, the entire thing – and will run the “Smart Attak”project alongside his Mazda/Mercedes/Brabus/TVR Dealership in the UK.
“I have the first road going proof of kit almost at the point of design freeze, and we’re using it to see what improvements are needed before we build the first batch of kits,” says Alanson. “The first run will be ten Smart Attak, and we’ll see how demand goes before building another ten. It looks like the complete kit less engine will be £6,000 + any taxes.” “The car is an absolute blast to drive. Having three times the standard power output really puts a grin on your face, and the F1 type howl which the exhaust puts out really makes folk take notice.
“It’s like they’re hearing a race car, and seeing a Smart.”
“I haven’t timed this car yet but it is seriously fast. So much so that I’m now spending some time on suspension research for the front end which needs matching to the rear setup supplied with the kit. “The car looks standard apart from the wider front wheels and the rear mounted silencer can that gives it away. Oh, and you can't hear the banshee howl on a jpeg pic!”
The web site will be up soon here and in the meantime if you want to talk to Bill, email him here.
BTW - we first saw this project on Jalopnik which in turn had first seen KneeSlider's excellent coverage.
