Tiny Smart car hits the big time
As the unique ForTwo goes on sale here, are Americans ready to get Smart?
2/20/2008
Photo by: William Agnew
If everyone in Santa Fe who drives to work alone started driving a Smart ForTwo, there would be hundreds more parking spaces scattered around town — from Canyon Road to Wal-Mart — because the tiny two-seater only takes up half an average parking spot.
There would be more room on Cerrillos Road to handle the heavy traffic and shorter lines at all those left-turn lanes that pinch off circulation like kinks in a garden hose. Gasoline sales in the City Different would plummet, as would emissions of noxious pollutants and the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, as these tiny cars would be sipping gas at the rate of 30 to 40 miles per gallon.
When it came time for local citizens to recycle their Smarts, there'd be half as much junk to transport off to new users. A car only big enough to hold a driver and a passenger while they get their daily grind ground could foment a revolution in the way our transportation affects the environment here in Santa Fe.
"The Smart looks too dinky for Santa Fe," you say? I buzzed around San Francisco for a couple of days in a ForTwo, and I'm prepared to say that, while the Smart is small, it's certainly not dinky. Rather, it's an engineering marvel that drives enough like a full-size car — and feels secure enough on a crowded interstate — to be a useful vehicle for many drivers in our green zone of Northern New Mexico. For a single person who stays around town, a Smart might be an only car — for a commuter from N.M. 14, part of an efficient family fleet.
The Smart is a real car, made by no other than Germany's mighty Mercedes-Benz, longtime manufacturer of heavy-duty luxury cars.
The original Smart car was dreamed up by the people at Swatch, who've prospered by selling inexpensive wristwatches with snap-on accessories that fit an owner's mood and style on a given day.
Somehow, Swatch concluded it could make a similar fashion accessory of a tiny car and found in Mercedes a partner to design and build them, naming them Smart, a combination of Swatch, Mercedes and art. The first Smart cars found their way to the streets of Europe in 1997.
Back then, as continues today, the 10 inexpensive colored plastic body panels of a Smart are easily removed by the owner for quick changes of color, perhaps to suit one's mood or style on a given day.
The engineers at Mercedes looked beyond just taking a small car and fiddling with it to make it smaller.
The Smart is a unique design in the automotive world, starting first with a safely cage, a strong metal frame that absorbs the shock of even a large whack, directing it through the floor and away from driver and passenger, who are protected within, sitting well back from the dashboard, cocooned by multiple airbags. A Mercedes test film shows a giant hydraulic machine hurling a Smart sideways onto a parking lot, where it rolls and tumbles to a stop, its corners dented but the passenger compartment intact.
A close look at the exterior of a Smart shows the "tridion safety cell" on display as a design element for all to see — shiny and silver, wrapped around the door and roof. I'll bet I'd be as safe as in a larger car if the Hummer from hell came barreling across the median at me. Think of a punted football.
Also unique in this day and age is an engine that sits behind the driver powering the rear wheels, similar to the layout of the original Volkswagen Beetle. U.S. shoppers get one engine choice: a three-cylinder made by Mercedes partner Mitsubishi in Japan, coupled to German five-speed transmission, with a twist: Like the Formula 1-inspired automated-manual transmissions found in supercars, and BMW's unloved SMG sequential manual gearbox, the Smart's transmission has no clutch pedal, but it's not a traditional automatic.
One electric motor cycles the clutch while another, larger one shifts through the gears at the command of a computer, eliminating both the third pedal and a conventional shift lever. In automatic mode, it shifts itself; using paddle shifters behind the steering wheel, standard on all but the base "pure" model, it can be used as a manual. Opinions of the transmission's action vary widely, so you'll have to see how you feel about it.
Without a back seat or an engine under the hood, the most striking thing about the Smart is its diminutive size: At 8 feet 10 inches long, a Smart is 3 feet 3.5 inches shorter than a Mini Cooper, 5 feet 9 inches shorter than a Toyota Prius — and two Smarts in a line are 10 inches shorter than a Chevrolet Suburban. It looks positively minute in the real world, even surrounded by cars that Americans otherwise find small.
But the Smart feels anything but small inside: With a high seating position and an airy cabin with tall windows all around, it feels at least as spacious as a Toyota Tacoma or Ford Ranger pickup. There is more than enough room for driver and passenger, with a package shelf behind that's roomy enough for groceries or flowerpots, power tools or Christmas presents. The two seats are large enough for full-size adults to sit comfortably.
The interior is the essence of simplicity, with a little pneumatic funkiness thrown in to animate what might otherwise be a bit too much typical-German austerity. Plastics of a suitably flat sheen make up most surfaces, with fabric inserts tastefully covering the dash and knee bolster.
After snatching the key — with upscale integrated keyless-entry fob — I was determined to find out, first thing, if the Smart could feel at home in typical American freeway traffic. I made a beeline to the battle zone of Interstate 280 in San Francisco and sidled up to an 18-wheel Peterbuilt rig that was roaring along at 75 or so. In its shadow, I felt like a remora fish shadowing a great while shark — and I found that Smart's engineers had done a good job at creating suspension and steering systems that resisted any white-knuckle buffeting and providing enough sound-proofing to mask the roar of a big diesel engine in the next lane.
Actually, the Smart's upright posture — so like a pickup with no cargo bed out back — taps into a uniquely American sense of security and goes a long way toward masking the small size of the car, from the inside at least, making formation driving with large vehicles not too bad at all. All my encounters with big trucks were uneventful and left me with no bad dreams of being crushed like a bug.
There is no doubt the Smart ForTwo has its limitations. When the passenger seatback is folded flat, a Smart will hold a lot of stuff, but it won't hold three people, period.
With only 70 horsepower on tap from its 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine (remember those?), it will cruise comfortably at 80 mph, but I wouldn't recommended trying 81. And EPA mileage estimates are lower than we would've expected at 33 mpg city/41 highway.
Equipped with a computer-controlled stability system developed by Mercedes, Smarts are not prone to rolling over, but the car's square little footprint doesn't inspire any intuitive confidence in its balance and leads to a pretty stiff ride. Other safety features on every Smart include, in addition to the safety-cage design, front and side airbags, ABS with electronic brake-force distribution and seatbelt tensioners.
Back on the "con" side, the transmission shifts so slowly that it sometimes seems broken if you aren't used to it. And don't forget, it won't hold three people, period.
There are three levels of Smart: The "pure" coupe starts at $12,235, a "passion" level with more standard equipment (a CD radio, A/C, shifter paddles, a panorama glass roof, power windows and mirrors and more) costs a nice, round $2,000 more, and then there's a convertible version, the passion cabriolet, for another $3,000.
At $17,235, that's the least-expensive convertible on sale in the U.S., by far, though it does stretch the definition somewhat.
Options are few and easy to choose between, but expect a flood of accessories as Smart, like Mini before it, gets comfortable with its place here and enthusiastic owners proliferate.
At those prices, Smarts would be perfectly fine for getting into central Santa Fe from Eldorado or Airport Road, with occasional trips to Albuquerque.
If a car as small as the Smart becomes a popular product, it could go a long way toward changing the dynamics of city traffic, along with the competitors that are sure to follow.
But Mercedes is hedging its bets of revolution while Smart sales ramp up — it only launched in the U.S. last month: Even though a car as tiny as the Smart is a legitimate option for environmentally responsible personal transportation (it's even manufactured in a French factory that incorporates state-of-the-art green-production processes), it will be sold as a cute little lifestyle accessory, just like BMW's Mini and Volvo's C30.
In the words of Dave Schembri, president of Smart USA, "What other car can you drive that you are validated in your choice at every stoplight? Our sales are targeted by attitude and lifestyle, not income and age."
Mercedes must know that Americans, in our world of boundless personal choice and sky's-the-limit optimism, aren't ready to choose transportation based on compromise, on cutting back.
The Smart's revolutionary role might be limited to providing proof that tiny transportation machines can be made safe and roadworthy enough to duke it out with the giants that will roam U.S. roads for years to come.
E-mail William Agnew at drive@sfnewmexican.com.
2008 Smart ForTwo
- Model prices: $12,235 for base, $14,235 for passion, $17,235 for passion cabriolet
- Vehicle type: Rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive, two-passenger city car
- Drivetrain: DOHC 12-valve 1.0-liter inline-three producing 70 horsepower at 5,800 rpm and 68 pound-feet of torque at 4,500 rpm; five-speed automated manual
- EPA mileage: 33 mpg city/41 highway, premium unleaded
- Length: 106.1 inches
- Wheelbase: 73.5 inches
- Weight: 1,808 pounds
- Built in: Hambach, France
Albuquerque dealer is open for business
Unlike when Mini launched in the U.S., New Mexico has a dealer selling the Smart ForTwo from the get-go — no pilgrimages to Denver needed to find out more about the car.
The Smart Center Albuquerque, at 1220 S. Renaissance NE, near CostCo, has been open about a month and has already delivered two ForTwos, including one to a Santa Fe buyer.
While the wait is already about a year and a half to get a ForTwo built to your specifications, you can make a refundable $99 reservation to get in line.
In the meantime, to get your curious hands on a ForTwo, make an appointment to test-drive one by calling them at 505-999-2500. — Jay Binneweg