Just In: Smart ForTwo

Sometimes events converge together:
Wednesday: The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) releases crash test results for the Smart ForTwo.
Thursday: We take delivery of our Smart.
Friday: The start of my annual pilgrimage to the Carlisle (Pennsylvania) Import and Replicar Show.

The result: A 1,000-mile road trip in our Smart over a three-day weekend.

It won’t come as a big surprise that a Smart isn’t really an optimum long-distance road trip car. The tiny two-seater is intended as a fashionable urban runabout; it’s a fairly common sight in big cities in Europe where parking is at a premium and low-displacement engines avoid big taxes. But now the second-generation ForTwo is on sale here in the United States, where people drive longer distances and the roads are filled with hulking SUVs.

My wife thought (once again) that I was a bit nuts for taking the Smart on this trip. The aforementioned crash test results helped me feel a bit better; the 1,800-pound Smart did quite well in the IIHS offset- and side-impact tests. Still, watching the crash videos, it was disheartening to see the car bounce dramatically away from the frontal-offset barrier, suggesting a risk for moving into oncoming traffic or tripping off the road. And the IIHS was quite clear in their press release that minicars have the highest relative accident death rate on the road.

Everything is relative. When I stopped to fill up the Smart during a rainy night on I-95 (you do that often with such a puny 8.7-gallon tank), I pulled into the pumps behind two people on a BMW motorcycle. Even though they had full riding safety gear, I felt a bit bad for them—they’re a lot more exposed than I was in my airbag-equipped transportation pod. (Plus I had a roof.) Surprisingly, you don’t feel that vulnerable in the Smart; the high seating position puts you at a decent height relative to other cars and the airy and roomy-enough-for-two cabin doesn’t feel as squished inside as you’d think. Just don’t look over your shoulder.

It’s a disappointment that this tiny car lacks daytime running lights—given its size, you can use all of the help to be seen you can get. And don’t expect slower-moving vehicles to get out of the way when you come up behind them to pass; the Smart doesn’t exactly enforce lane discipline from other drivers.

But once people see you, the Smart is one of the most stared-at cars on the road. Everyone looks at you and lots of people point. Some of them laugh. You wind up waving a lot. Smarts are still rare sights, especially outside of the urban areas where most of the dealers are located.

It wasn’t a surprise that the Smart drew a lot of attention when parked on the show field at Carlisle. Every time I went back to the car, it had drawn a small crowd. (There was a lot more interest in the Smart than there was in the Jaguar XK convertible I drove to the show two years ago.) People basically had the same two questions: What is it and what kind of fuel mileage does it get.

The answer: On our not-yet-broken-in Smart, I observed 40 mpg on the required premium fuel while cruising at highway speeds. With all of 71 horsepower from the tiny 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine, the Smart keeps up in traffic but struggles to maintain speed on highway hills. You’re tempted to manually downshift the slow-shifting automated manual using the paddle shifters. When worked, this gasoline engine sounds a lot like a diesel. Still, this car is a lot quicker than the first-generation Canadian-market Smart turbodiesel we previously tested.

There is something of a debate brewing in the automotive press of whether the Smart ForTwo is fun to drive. As Lawrence Ulrich wrote in his pointed New York Times review, “The Smart has been described as fun to drive by some reviewers, but other than showing taillights to the neighborhood riding mowers, I don’t see it.”

To my way of thinking, the Smart’s fun doesn’t come from doing the normal things that make other cars fun—like super handling or acceleration—but rather that it does normal car stuff at all. Compared to every other car in this market, it seems so wonderfully improbable that this tiny car can haul two people and their luggage while keeping up (and sometimes passing) highway traffic. Plus, just as driving a big SUV can inspire some evil thoughts (Can I clear that curb in the mall parking lot?), the Smart almost begs you to find tiny parking spots or squeeze into little holes in traffic.

But just how well does the Smart do normal car stuff? We’ll let you know as we put more miles on ours.

—Tom Mutchler

Comments

[David Levine]

I was just thinking the other day while driving how much power our cars generate that is simply wasted - our cars are much more powerful than we actually require to move us around. My car can carry myself... or it can carry five people plus luggage. For the same distance trip, it would use almost the same amount of gas (I assume there are differences, but minor ones). One answer is car-pooling, of course: it helps get the most work out of the gas you're burning. But sometimes it isn't practical (schedules, locations, etc). Now the Smart For Two is an interesting response to that: instead of car pooling in your big car, just get a small car. Of course, you're then supposed to get much better gas mileage in return for such a small car, and the shame of it is that there are bigger cars that get better mileage, so this doesn't really work out. Plus if you ever have the need to carry five people plus luggage in your Smart For Two, it just isn't going to happen. What we really need are modular cars that can change their size (and fuel consumption) for various "missions": one size for your daily commute, another size for the family road trip. Science fiction! But wouldn't it be great?

[Rick Sanford]

I wanted to go to the Carlisle show this year, but didn't make it. Maybe next year. My experiences so far with my smart have been the same positives as others (general acknowledgement and acceptance by others) but with none of the perceived negatives of some (confounding transmission, being tossed around on the freeway). On the contrary the total experience of owning and driving the smart fortwo has been nothing short of "fun".

Has "fun to drive" really come down to propping up one's ego (“The Smart has been described as fun to drive by some reviewers, but other than showing taillights to the neighborhood riding mowers, I don’t see it.”) and/or intimidating others on the road ("...don’t expect slower-moving vehicles to get out of the way when you come up behind them to pass; the Smart doesn’t exactly enforce lane discipline from other drivers.")?

Maybe these expectations come from comparisons with the status quo, even in cases where you feel pretty strongly that the status quo is so out of whack as to be criminally inappropriate, even negligent. My comparators seem to be different than many of the automotive journalists who have struggled so to come to terms with the smart fortwo. In time perhaps people will begin to remember or discover for the first time that "driving" can be a term that describes the actual act of driving for fun, and not the annoyances one is forced to tolerate in the course of going about one's daily life.

I guess that's what happens when cars become ubiquitous and driving them becomes a required chore to be endured. In that case the fun quotient is not a matter of the car at all, but rather the situation we've put ourselves in as we drive. Driving becomes "defensive" and our culture of fear creates an automotive arms race. The smart fortwo is a carnation placed in the gun barrel of the road rage army.

As the world begins to take more seriously the challenges we all face with energy sourcing, population growth, climate change and the inter-relatedness of global economics, one small step may be to embrace flexible, alternative "tools" that we may use more responsibly and with less guilt, allowing ourselves to have some honest fun.

[Cale]

Tom,

Your comment about the BMW motorcycle at the gas station made me laugh. That couple out for a tour on their motorcycle were probably having a great time. I know I love to tour by motorcycle.

But I can think of a lot of cars I'd rather tour in than a Smart. Sitting in that little car (you did mention that the rear bumper isn't very far from the front bumper) would make me feel claustrophobic. At least on a motorbike you've got the sky above and clear visibility all around.

Comparative safety? Not even worth comparing. A car has a cage. The rider IS the cage on the motorcycle. Motorcyclists accept greater risk and the smartest ones make efforts to minimize the potential for injury.

Carlisle by motorcycle or in a Smart car? It would be a no-brainer for me. (Dr. Freud, what have I written? :-))

Fun stuff driving these ground-breaking cars, I'll bet!

Cale

[Jim Freas]

I was waiting to hear how comfortable you where in the car driving for long periods of time. How big are you? How was the seating position? How was the noise at highway speeds? Did you get tired quicker then in a mid sized sedan?

[Garry S]

Tom:
Regarding the comment about no daytime running lights, aren't they required under Canadian law?

[Bernard Siegal]

Just a side comment in regard to Tom Mutchler report on his new smart. As mentioned in an earlier blog I own a convertible smart which I have only really done short trips in the city. This weekend we buzzed outside of Dallas on the highway for about an hour and half at highway speeds. It was windy but I was surprised how stable the car was speeds up to 80 mph. This was certainly no way to save gas and most of the time I drove between 65 and 75 mph. This area of Texas does not have any really steep hills so the smart had no trouble staying with and passing traffic. The noise level was acceptable depending which way the wind was blowing. It has been in the mid to high 90's here and the climate control has worked well. I am not sure the smart would be the my first choice for long distance driving, but I certainly would not rule it out completely. The smart averaged about 42 mph which I thought was fairly decent. I guess the bottom line is that Mercedes has done a pretty good job making the smart more th an just an inner city car.

[Tom Mutchler]

Sorry for the delay in replying - been on vacation (with my wife's minivan, not the Smart.)

Jim, I'm 5'9" The Smart has plenty of room. The seats are firm; I could have used more lumbar and cushion adjustments. Compared to other cars, I found it quite loud, especially on hills when you're revving the engine. As noted by Bernard above, wind can buffet the car, adding to the noise. Wake turbulence from tractor trailers is a bit unsettling at first.

Given the state of modern sedans with their isolation and super-easy power, it is more fatiguing to drive the Smart on a road trip. The noise and ride take a toll. It was designed for urban duty and it can be pressed into service on a road trip (obviously), but it isn't optimal for that.

[Richaard and Cheryl Glover]

We recently purchased a used Smartfortwo and am completelly delighted with the diesel, as a retired diesel mech, I understand what they like and how they like to run, ours got 89.9 mpg on the flat east of Hinton Alberta #16 and 96 mpg on #4 south into Sask
Swift current area. As far as distance goes , suck it up, be great
full you can drive something so cheap to operate. We love it.

[Todd]

My sister in law bought one of these tiny cars and now when she wants to travel long distance she con's my wife into driving her large sedan which is costing us gas money. I finally put my foot down and the in law is none to happy since she just took a 600 mile trip to see her son in her go cart. She had to call and complain after the trip about how terrible the ride was. I told her that no one forced her to buy the go cart and she hung up on me.