453 Fortwo Dog Guard

If you are one of those strange people who likes and owns a dog? You might want a dog guard for your boot. In most countries, a dog must be restrained in a car. Since you can’t nail it to the floor or glue it to the seat, you will have to consider a seat belt harness, carrier, cage or one of these guards.

Many years ago, a foreign guy asked me if there was a dog rack available for the smart. I laughed so much. Since then, I have always called them dog racks as it makes me laugh even now.

Dog Rack

This is the dog rack that I bought. I bought it 2nd hand since I don’t actually have a dog.

It’s made by Kleinmetall, click the link to go and see the range. They do them for the 451 and 453.

They say that this can’t be fitted to the cabrio, so you’ll need a coupe.

Open the back and clear all of the shit out of the boot. Maybe even real shit knowing you dog owners.

These are the fairly crap lower fixings. They aren’t my favourite design.

Slide the seats forwards, lift the carpet and insert the fixing plates like this.

If you give them a light tap, they lock in place by wedging itself.

Fold the carpet down, ensuring that the cut-outs in the carpet are folded underneath and out the way or cut them off.

Slide the mesh section in through the side door and behind the seat.

This saves having to wrestle it in through the boot.

Lift the mesh section up and set it down over the fixing lip.

Press the mesh section down and screw on the large plastic finger nuts. I actually had to use longer bolts since the supplied bolts just weren’t long enough. This was because I folded the carpet tabs underneath instead of cutting them off.

Get this arm. It’s a different shape to the other side.

Slide the end over the boot hatch latch plate…

…and bolt the other end to the main mesh section. It looks odd because of the side they have welded the nut. However, this is the way it’s supposed to be done.

Get the arm for the other side…

…slide it over the latch plate…

…and bolt it in place as before.

Ensure all of the fixings are tight and you’re done. It should be solid.

Looks good and doesn’t interfere with the seats.

It would also make a suitable load divider if you want to use your smart as a small van.

What Would You Change?

I would just use good strong zip ties for the bottom fixings. Maybe a few. The welded in nuts on the side are (in my opinion) on the wrong side. It still works though.

Fitments

451 Fortwo Coupe
453 Fortwo Coupe
453 Forfour

Price

They are priced about €220 for the fortwo and “holy shit” for the forfour. That’s approximately 3 times as much as €220.