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2005 Smart
ForTwo
By Tony Whitney
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For several years, you could only buy a Smart in Europe, but now
they're here - and they seem to be getting more popular by the
day. People seem to be lining up for the SmartForTwo at the Mercedes-Benz
dealership at the Richmond Auto Mall.
But just what is a SmartForTwo, anyway? The little car was designed
from the start as a two-person city vehicle. There’s no effort
at all to pretend that the car is a match for sedans of any kind.
It’ll hold a couple of full-sized adults and a decent amount of
luggage - and that’s all.
It’s built in France and is very popular in Europe, but only after
a rather shaky start in the marketplace. Originally, Swiss watchmaker
Swatch was involved in the project, but now it's a division of
Mercedes-Benz.
Nowadays, you’ll see them everywhere - Paris, Berlin, Stockholm,
Monte Carlo - the streets are sometimes almost buzzing with them.
Now the Smart has arrived in Canada and the news I have is that
they're selling every one that comes into the country.
I’ve never driven a vehicle that attracted as much attention from
the general public as the little Smart. I’ve tooled around in
Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Hummers and all kinds of other exotics,
but none attracted the same interest as the Smart.
People just seem to love it, but the first question they pose
usually concerns whether or not I felt vulnerable in traffic in
the Smart. The answer is no. Since the cockpit is as big or bigger
than that of most small sedans, you don’t have a feeling of vulnerability
at all.
Also, the car is built around a rugged crash-worthy structure
and there are air bags for both occupants. I’m not saying you
wouldn’t come off worse in a serious encounter with a Kenworth,
but the vehicle is very safe for most city applications. To bring
the lightweight Smart to a stop, use is made of a disc front/drum
rear setup with ABS system.
Added to this feeling of confidence is the fact that the little
rig will buzz along happily at anything up to 130 km/h. I had
no trouble at all keeping up with freeway traffic and nobody was
exactly leaving me standing at the lights.
Although Smarts are available in various parts of the world with
a variety of engines, we get a tiny .8-litre turbo-diesel. Smarts
are amazingly fuel efficient - especially the diesel - thanks
to their light weight, the claimed highway fuel consumption figure
is a miserly 3.8-litres/100 km. For power-hungry Smartsters in
Europe, the famous German tuner Brabus is doing a modified version
of one of these little rigs.
The transmission is of sequential semi-manual design and has six
speeds. You can either opt for a clutchless manual routine, or
use the Smart in pure automatic mode. Best performance, not surprisingly,
is found with the car in sequential mode. The drivetrain is not
the car's strong point, but drivers soon get used to using the
transmission to best effect and zipping happily along.
Smart gives the zero to 100 km/h acceleration time as 18-seconds,
which is pretty leisurely, but it doesn’t feel that way. Probably
due to its miniscule wheelbase, the Smart seems peppy and it’s
certainly fun to drive and it's super-easy to park.
The styling is very clever indeed. There’s no pretense about this
being anything but a two-seater car. There’s a surprising amount
of room for luggage, given the length of the vehicle, and it will
easily take a set of golf clubs and even more.
Interestingly, the car’s colored composite exterior panels are
removable and can be replaced by panels of different colors to
transform your Smart. You can’t do that with your average North
American car, for sure.
While driving the Smart, I was never in any doubt that a worthwhile
market exists for a vehicle like this in North America. Some of
my more power-crazed colleagues in the automotive press disagree,
but my belief is based purely on public reaction to this tiny
car.
One admiring gentleman I spoke to had just taken delivery of an
expensive Mercedes-Benz CL500, but still admitted that he’d buy
a Smart to commute to his office. Lots of other folk shared his
sentiments and the Smart is very much a "classless" automobile
that appeals to just about everybody for one reason or another.
The convertible version I tested was priced at around $19,500
in basic form, but the top is a very cleverly-designed system
with various options as to how much fresh air you get. A basic
Smart coupe lists at $16,500 - about the same as an entry-level
Honda Civic.
So if you seriously want to save fuel and make a smaller environmental
footprint, why not buy one of these. It could be the smartest
move you ever make!
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