M160

A car 2.5 meters long has nowhere to put an engine and no excuse for being slow, which is how the smart city-coupé ended up with this. Sold under the Suprex name, it was an all-aluminum 599 cc inline-three with a single overhead camshaft, two valves per cylinder and a Garrett GT12 turbocharger, weighing 59 kg, lying almost flat beneath the load floor at the back and driving the rear wheels through a six-speed automated manual. Output ran from 45 PS in the base car up to 61 PS, on 9.5:1 compression that the turbo made possible rather than difficult.

The 2003 facelift enlarged both bore and stroke for 698 cc: 50 PS in the fortwo, and 63 or 83 PS in the Roadster that used the same platform stretched. Brabus got 101 PS and 130 N·m out of it, which in a 790 kg two-seater justified the paddle shifters rather better than the badge suggested. Engines and cars were built together at Hambach in Moselle. Production ran to 2007, when the second-generation fortwo moved to a Mitsubishi three-cylinder and Mercedes-Benz left the sub-liter business.