SMART fortwo Review

The first generation of the smart fortwo was known to be very jerky because of its golf-cart wheelbase and stiffer-than-a-British Royal person suspension. Well, the second generation is not exactly better when it comes to the suspension's ability to soak in potholes or tram rails. Trying to make the car even less prone to tipping with the shiny side down, smart engineers have mildly increased the wheelbase, the front and rear tracks and stiffened the suspension even more. This translates into a feeling of driving a really really high cart.

It doesn't exactly have a kidney punishing suspension setup, but your bums will definitely feel every "sleeping policeman" resting on residential area roads. This is not the worst part about it, since the sea-sickness-inducing movement is even more present. Let's put it this way, every time you blast from a (green lit) stoplight, you are in the middle of an atrociously long gear change or you brake hard, the car will either dip or surge. Or both, although not simultaneously.

After a few miles in it you kind of become acquainted and even begin to like the nose-up/nose-down movement, but the horrible gear changes can still get on your nerves in certain occasions. As we mentioned before, our test car was the "pulse" model, which in mortal language means it was equipped in standard with paddle shifters on the steering wheel for the automatized five-speed manual transmission, a manual air-conditioning system, electrically-operated windows and mirrors and a somewhat decent audio system with mp3 support.

Just like its predecessor, the current generation smart fortwo's body is almost all plastic body panels mounted around an exposed, rigid steel frame. That rigid frame is responsible for two major things in the smart fortwo. First, it makes the car as safe as a much bigger one in the event of a major impact, and second, it defines any smart's color. To make this second statement more easy to comprehend, learn that the smart fortwo comes in only two official colors, regardless of what your eyes are telling you. For example, our test car wasn't white, as one would assume from the pictures, but silver.

The explanation for this is that the fortwo's safety cell comes in either of two colors, black or silver. Interestingly, pretty much every body panel on the little car is made from interchangeable plastic with the paint injected into it, which you can switch by yourself, therefore changing the car's overall color.

Other than this rather unexpected trivia, the smart's technical bits are at least just as interesting. Pretty much everything about this car screams quirkiness, and we're not necessarily talking about its design now. For example, the engine doesn't sit in the front, like on 99.86 percent of little cars out there, but in the rear, just under the luggage compartment. The five-speed robotized (and bad, very very bad) manual transmission also goes in there.

These design solutions make it so the fortwo has probably the shortest overhangs in the world, of any car, thus increasing interior space to ludicrous numbers, especially compared to how tiny the exterior size is. Of course, there isn't that much space under the trunk for a big engine, so our test car had to do with a one-liter, three-cylinder engine, which delivers 71 horsepower and 92 Nm (67.9 lb ft) of torque. Having to carry a mass of only 750 kilograms (1653 pounds), the 71 hp fortwo achieves 100 km/h (62 mph) in 13.3 seconds, which is, of course, not that fast. The 0-50 km/h (30 mph) on the other hand, which is what counts in the city, is more than respectable at under 4 seconds.

Although filled with technology, the smart fortwo doesn't really impress just by stepping into its interior. Sure, our test car had power windows, power side rear view mirrors (manually retractable) and power steering, an adjustable steering wheel, a pretty good air conditioning unit and an audio system with mp3 support. That amount of gadgetry might be enough to impress a BMW Isetta driver from the 1950s, but it's pretty common nowadays. It's not exactly standard option on any micro car out there, but it isn't groundbreaking either.

Apart from those comfort-related features, our car was also equipped with the so-called "micro hybrid drive" unit. Before you jump out and buy one thinking that this means the smart fortwo mhd is like a Prius' tiny brother you should learn that "micro hybrid drive" is just a fancier expression for a "start/stop system". A very annoying "start/stop system", that is. Unlike other similar features we've experienced in other cars, the one on the fortwo works like this: when driving at under 8 km/h (5 mph) and pressing the brake pedal, the car will automatically shut off its engine, thus preserving the amount of fuel you would have otherwise wasted while waiting at a random traffic light.

Just like communism, this idea is great only in theory, since the mhd system managed to get on our nerves only about two or three minutes into the test drive. You see, the feature would be all fine and dandy if it actually knew what you have in mind when decreasing your speed (using the brake, naturally) below 8 km/h (5 mph). Maybe not every speed decrease means you are about to stop at a traffic light. Maybe you're just in very busy traffic, trying to slowly crawl with the other cars, in which case all you need to do is press the meddling "ECO" button, thus switching the damn system off.

This is a very sensitive subject when talking about a car this small and especially this light. smart marketing has gone through some pretty rough times trying to convince buyers that this actually a pretty safe automobile, much safer than you'd expect just by looking at it. There were a lot of non-believers between our team members as well, with all the logic in the world telling us this can't be a very good place to be in the unfortunate case of an accident.

The first generation of the fortwo appeared in 1998, and apart from the different name (it was called the smart city coupe then), it was also using an earlier version of the almost indestructible "Tridion" safety cell, airbags, an anti-lock braking system and for the first time in a car as small as this, electronic stability control. We tested the latest model, part of the second generation, with an improved "Tridion" safety cell, which works its magic in three ways.

First of all, it's so stiff that's almost impossible to bend in a regular crash. Of course, we all know that cars need to decelerate slowly in order to protect their occupants, something that a rigid cell can't quite do. Hey, at least you'll have an open casket at your funeral. Second of all, since such a small vehicle can't possibly have enough crumple zones to help in the case of an accident, the Tridion safety cell is designed to activate other cars' crumple zones in order to protect the smart's occupants. Third, its shape is especially made to dissipate the energy of the impact around the passenger area, just like an egg shell, or a coconut. Of course, it is not designed to eventually crack like an Easter egg or a coconut in the hands of a thirsty monkey.

There is absolutely NO other car in the world today which can be better for a crowded city than the smart fortwo. Yes, it has its downsides, major ones when it comes to the transmission, but on the whole the feeling when parking into a tight spot is very similar, if not identical, to the one you have when solving a Rubik's cube for the first time. It's like everything fits into place naturally, and all the nerves you would have had in a "regular" car are simply vanishing away when driving a smart in heavy traffic. You can almost feel the other road participants' envy when squeezing between gas-guzzlers in a parking lot.

The worst part about the fortwo is by far its rubbish transmission. The way it changes every gear is atrociously aching for both driver and passenger. The (moderate) power to the wheels is interrupted so abruptly and for such a long period during shifts that at first you just want to keep it in a single gear, on manual mode. If only it had enough torque to use just two gears: drive and reverse. Then the main problem with this car would have been solved.

We couldn't settle on a particular ugly feature, but some of us (hint: he shoots pictures and his name starts with Tudor and ends with Raiciu) thought the smart is one of the ugliest vehicles they had ever seen. Of course, that is a subjective opinion, and most of all not a common one, especially in our team. Other than the "looks factor", the fit and finish of the interior plastics COULD have been a little better, but considering this car costs less than a Fiat 500, the quality is acceptable.