With an Audi S6 for weekdays and a Toyota GR Supra for weekends, Philip Thomas could fairly be described as a petrolhead.
At least that was until the IT specialist stunned his neighbours by recently adding a third car to his fleet: a Smart #1.
How the curtains twitched, but this was no ordinary #1. Although the standard model has a Golf GTI-beating 268bhp, Thomas had instead opted for the Brabus variant with 422bhp – around as much as his Audi.
However, where the S6 is a low-slung saloon with performance engineered into it, the Smart #1 Brabus is a compact SUV that, aside from its additional, front-mounted motor, is almost identical to the standard model, right down to its tyres and suspension.
“The Brabus is certainly quick, but it’s not very elegant,” commented our road testers when they got their hands on the model.
Thomas describes the Brabus’s performance as “brutal”. “You can feel the twin turbos in the Audi and the Toyota winding up and the power coming in, but on the Brabus the power is instant,” he says.
“If you aren’t paying attention, you can be doing 80mph in a flash. The fact that there’s no increase in engine noise doesn’t help. It’s very fast, but you can feel the system fussing away as it shares power between the motors, whereas my S6 just feels planted.
"I couldn’t imagine my elderly mum going from her Skoda Fabia to even just the 268bhp Smart #1.”
However, that’s exactly the kind of switch increasing numbers of drivers are making as they migrate to electric cars.
They may not be going straight into 422bhp EVs, but many are trading across, or up, into cars that can comfortably out-accelerate a hot hatch.
Of the new EVs on the forecourt, only a handful, including the Volkswagen ID 5 Pro 174PS, take 10 seconds or longer to accelerate from 0-62mph.
The subject of EVs and their surplus of performance has been given fresh attention by a leading motor insurance broker.
They told us that electric cars are involved in more accidents than petrol- and diesel-engined models, and the only explanation can be that they’re quicker.
“There are 26% more accident claims for EVs than for ICE vehicles,” says Carl Shuker, CEO of Howden UK&I Retail (formerly known as A-Plan), an insurance broker with 220 high street offices across the UK and Ireland.
