The headline on CNN half way through our two-day introduction to the American version of the new, second generation smart – make that a lower case “s” if you please – from Mercedes-Benz could not have been more germane. “Oil prices broke through the $96 per barrel level for the first time in overnight trading,” the anchor announced. Since then, it has gone on to flirt with the $100 per barrel price point.
That is bad news for Americans, but an interesting development for smart, the trendy urban two-seater that has sold more than three-quarters of million copies since its introduction in 36 countries, starting in 1998. The United States becomes country number 37 in January.
Travelers to Europe have no doubt seen the first generation smart. At less then nine feet in length, these two-seat commuter cars provide practical, economical transport in traffic choked cities throughout the continent. These first generation vehicles were never intended for this market and did not meet U.S. emissions or safety standards. The second generation smart, about to make its debut in another two months, was designed with the U.S. in mind.
With an overall length of 106.1 inches – my first car had a wheelbase longer than that – the smart fortwo is diminutive. The model name, fortwo, doubles as the maximum passenger count. To put the smart in perspective, at just under nine feet in length, it is the shortest car offered in this country. It out minis the Mini. The average mid-size sedan is about 15 feet long. A Chevrolet Suburban is more than 18 feet long.
So why, you may ask, would anyone consider the smart? Dave Schembri, president of smart USA had one answer: look around the next time you are on the road. How many vehicles have more than one passenger? How many more than two? Why carry around all that extra vehicle, which is costing you at the pump, when you don’t need its capacity? Would you, the next time you go to grab a lunch alone, Schembri asked, order lunch for five and throw away the unneeded four servings? Not likely. So why cart around seating for five when what you really need is a place for one or two.
The good news is that the interior, despite the length of the car being anything but extravagant, is extremely roomy. Taller passengers will have no trouble with leg room or head room and the seats are nicely supportive. For one or two passengers, the absent seven to 10 feet in overall length will never be missed. The cabin is just as roomy, width excepted, as the front of a Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedan. The seating is infinitely more spacious and comfortable than any coach airline seat.
While many smarts in Europe are diesel powered and achieve spectacular fuel economy as a result, only a three-cylinder, gasoline engine will be offered in the United States. It displaces one liter, or 61 cubic inches. Using the more stringent 2008 EPA fuel economy rating system, the price sticker will proclaim 33 miles per gallon in the city and 40 on the highway, making the smart the most fuel efficient non-hybrid, gasoline powered car offered in this country. Careful driving should result in numbers better than these.
The only transmission is a five-speed manual that drives just like the automatics Americans prefer. There is no clutch pedal and the floor-mounted shift lever sports the familiar P-R-N-D letters. Two computer-controlled electric motors take care of clutch engagement and shift the gears.
Step on the gas when the light turns green and the smart accelerates with the same surges with each shift that owners of manual transmission vehicles expect. While the computer backs off engine power for each shift, 30 minutes of practice revealed that some driver modulation of the accelerator at shift points could smooth the performance. Full throttle acceleration revealed adequate power, even when it was time to merge onto California’s crowded freeways. One smart executive at the presentation claimed a 10-second zero-to-60 time, though an informal timing suggested that the real figure might be closer to 13 seconds.
What this does not reveal is that when left in the fully automatic mode, a sudden need for acceleration is often delayed by a what feels to be an eternity when you have committed to merge into a gap of swift moving traffic and the transmission dithers looking for the right gear. Fortunately, there is a manual mode for gear selection that allows you to get around that hesitation, but it takes preplanning.
Around town the smart is pleasant and eye catching. One couple, who seemed to be arguing at a red light noticed our smart and within five seconds, both were smiling, if not at each other, at the smart.
The three-cylinder engine revs to 3,000 rpm to maintain highway speeds, but that is not a problem. The little motor never seems stressed by this operating range and noise levels are surprisingly low.
Handling around town is nimble, as you would expect. The absence of power steering is no hardship at all in a car this light and with a rear-mounted engine and transmission. The truth is, many members of the press were not aware of the manual steering until told of it.
On the freeway, the ride became choppy and at times abrupt over stretches with uneven concrete slabs. Steering also required frequent minor corrections to keep the car going straight, but I found none of this to be a major problem. Most surprising, the convertible version was, when the top was closed, as snug and quiet as the coupe.
Handling through turns was good. The smart did not feel top heavy, though it was not particularly sporty, as its size might suggest it would be, either.
In a car this size, safety will be a major concern. On hand to answer questions and address this issue was Karl-Heinz Baumann, a manager of safety engineering who oversaw development of the smart and the current S-Class Mercedes-Benz sedan.
His message, backed up with a series of demonstrations, crash test videos and displays, was that the smart offers a surprising level of crash protection. The body structure is said to be amazingly rigid, backed up by a smart that had been crash tested by being hit in the rear at 51 miles per hour. The passenger compartment remained completely intact and the doors opened and closed nearly normally. The seats have integral head restraints designed for rear impact protection. Videos of frontal crashes, including one into a car nearly three times the weight of the smart, also showed an amazingly solid performance. The same was true of a rollover video. In Europe, the smart achieved a four out of five star rating in the continent’s crash test program and insurance claims for smart are significantly below average.
The smart fortwo will start at $11,590, plus a yet to be determined destination charge. The cabrio, which is smart-speak for convertible, will be $16,590. The coupe at that bargain price is called the Pure model. For $2,000 more, buyers are going for the Passion version with air conditioning, steering wheel paddle shifters, alloy wheels, an audio system, power windows and heated power mirrors.
Will the smart make it in this country? Based on the response from onlookers who thought the car to be irresistibly cute and its pricing – dealer have to agree not to charge more than MSRP in the franchise agreement – it should do well, especially in urban areas where space for parking and maneuvering is in limited supply. There are already 30,000 people who have reserved a smart, and of those, 90 percent are going through with the purchase. And, if oil passes the $100 per barrel mark and the price per gallon passes $4.00, who knows how long the lines will be for the most fuel-efficient non-hybrid gasoline powered car in America? Deliveries start in January.
