The 2nd biggest gathering of smart cars ever at Mercedes-Benz world, Brooklands. This is my diary of the day.

09:00 hours

I arrive bleary eyed and slightly tired to South Mimms Services where a gathering of around 8 smart owners had appeared. Various people from the forums had gathered just inside the services to get breakfast, admire cakes and drink coffee to kick-start their day! 

09:45 hours

We depart South Mimms onto the M25, it's rather crowded on the Motorways, and we seem to gather some smart
owners along the way as we reach Brooklands.

11:00 hours

Arrive at Brooklands to the sight of the ForFun and ForFun2 sitting high on the 4x4 test track, and I'm directed to the competition area as I'm entered in the Best Kept competition. I park up and gather the various bits I need to clean the car and set about cleaning all the dirt off, whilst admiring the test drivers doing pirouettes in the new fortwo on the skid pan!

New fortwo doing strange manouvres!

We're parked next to the traders area, Smartarse Design have Digi-Roadster, s2eagleye and Massive on their stand, Wellsmart is showing it's new fortwo and changing the wheels to Spikelines Bantam Trailers, Smart Parts Direct, Smart Trailers and a couple of other smaller traders are in the trade area, with FQ101 off to one side showing their cars. I wander round and say hi to the various people I know, and introduce myself to the people I don't! There were quite a few traders there, Smart Parts Direct had the biggest range of parts available, followed closely by wellsmart, and Smartarse were showing off the new Powerflex bushes for smart cars.

12:30 hours

I finish up cleaning the car, and go off wandering around Mercedes-Benz World, inside they have a display of the prototype cars, including the eco-speedster, and a protoype from the Paris motor show that had 'peanut' shaped headlights, an original design feature they changed in the older cars, along with a prototype crossblade still with fabric seats and a crosstown which everyone commented they would buy if they had the chance!

Eco Speedster concept

Fortwo Concept

Along further inside was the new Brabus Xclusive with a bodykit, 98ps and dark headlights, a superb looking car, with the interior to compliment the exterior. Nearer the front of Mercedes-Benz world they had the Tridion4 concept, the prototype forfour, with it's blue mercedes glass and white interior it looked like something from 2050, not the year 2001 (when it was designed).

Brabus Xclusive

I go off to find something to eat at the cafe inside, passing a guy dressed as a crash test dummy and someone else dressed as a 1920s race car driver.

14:00 hours

Competitions start to be judged, there are plenty of cars in the four competitions (Best Kept, Best Dressed, Internally Modified and Externally Modified), mine was to be entered into Best Kept, so I go finish off and polish, and watch the formation driving of the Mercedes Benz World test drivers, the 360 spins and the red arrows style crossovers were very impressive, and showed the new car off well, especially the handling. 

After cleaning up I go off to talk to various people again and catch up with people I hadn't met. I started to queue for a test drive in the new fortwo, but the queues were over an hour long. There is a bit of a lull in proceedings around 15:00 hours, and so sit down with Evilution and OTV for a chat over a drink of orange juice and go find the forfun2 and forfun to take photos.

Forfun2

17:00 hours

The winners of the competitions are announced. More info to come on the winners. The BBQ is fired up and the free evening buffet is available!

Conclusion

Overall it was a well organised day out, the sun shined, I met a few people I hadn't met before, and caught up with a few who I had met before! The organisation by thesmartclub and Daimler-Chrysler UK was well done, the catering was brilliant, the staff on hand were friendly, and I look forward to the next one, perhaps onSMART will be able to get a stand next year!

Crossblade prototype

Crosstown prototype

Tridion 4

(First picture courtesy of Evilution)