DaimlerChrysler#;s ‘Smart#; City Car has been a thought provoking if controversial project. DC is building a brand with Smart and a new four seater – which will be built in collaboration with Mitsubishi – marks a new chapter for the brand from 2004. But how does the City Car coupe drive?


The first thing that struck me about the Smart was that I did not feel that I was in a two-seater.  It did not feel small at all; in fact it felt roomier than a number of small cars I had owned or driven previously.  The interior is well-designed and the controls are all readily accessible (the only one I did not like was the eject function for the cassette player, but may be it is a little churlish to complain too much about that, so I will make no further comment); the driving position is higher than a conventional car and, speaking as a long-term SUV owner, I liked that. 


The sight lines are generally excellent, although the rear view mirror was a little too small for my liking. I could not help wondering if the inverted triangular shape was a mistake, but my friends at Smart tell me the triangular shape is a compromise given the high-backed seats – with a more conventional rectangular mirror, too much of the rear view would have been taken up with the seat headrests.



Driving around London was easy and I certainly felt safe; 4 airbags were standard on the version I had and in semi-automatic mode, the car would accelerate in and out of tricky traffic conditions without trouble.  I certainly preferred the six-speed semi-automatic to the automatic mode, partly because of the excessive surge as the automatic changed up through the gears, and partly because of the novelty of the sequential gear change.  Non-technical passengers who were unaware of the sequential gear change system admired the way the system would re-set itself to first gear when the car had been stopped in 4th or even 5th!


The Smart also handled the small amount of motorway driving which I did in it very well.  As in urban driving, handling and acceleration were excellent, but my motorway experience was all on a nice day outside London – I would like the chance to try it in heavy wind and rain, in heavy traffic – or perhaps not.

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Intriguingly the car appealed to young and old – my six and half year old thought it would be nice a car in which to be driven to school, while my elderly father thought it would be excellent for “driving your mother around in …” – my mother vetoed the idea of trading in their trusty Corsa.  Perhaps two or three times a year, they need the passenger seat for a third person.  And therein lies the Smart’s problem.  When you have stopped reading this, look out of the window – how many cars can you see with just one person?  The majority I guess.  How many have two? The majority of those which do not have one I imagine.  And more to the point how many have more than two? Private Eye, the great British satirical magazine, recently carried a cartoon which showed a dozen or so people carriers, each with just one person.


We love our cars, the personal freedom it gives us; the bigger the better for many of us – why else do people have Landcruisers or Range Rovers in London? And why do the Americans still love over-sized and over-powered SUVs and the like?  Visitors to just-auto will be mainly people who work in the industry and some enthusiasts. For those that work in the industry, we have a degree of responsibility to look critically, yet constructively, at the industry which supports us, be it financially or from an interest-only point of view.


Cars mean freedom and independence; they allow us many many more choices with how we spend our time compared our predecessors; yet, as we know all too well, this comes at a price. Many of our major cities, and indeed many of our smaller ones too, are choked with traffic, polluting the air, creating health problems and not actually getting us to our destinations as speedily as we would like.  Even so, our obsession with large cars, SUVs and MPVs continues, almost unabated.  I am as much a car fan as any of you of reading this, but we need to think about the relationship between the car and society; several car companies have hybrid-powered, low or even zero-emissions vehicles.  Many of these initiatives have been stimulated by laws such as those in California which force car companies not just to offer, but also to sell a certain number of zero-emissions cars.  Even if the technology is not yet economic for mass-production of such cars, pollution and congestion can be cut with smaller cars.


In that light, the Smart is part of the answer (the complete answer involves many other issues, including public transport).  Personally I doubt if urban road pricing will make much difference to driving habits, unless it is utterly penal; but politicians like the trappings of office too much to tax us out of our cars completely.  If we drove smaller cars, there would – literally – be more space on the road, parking would be easier and so on.


As I say, the Smart is part of the answer – the Smart is also a brilliant piece of design, it looks great, it is fun to drive, gives good fuel economy…. but will it help re-shape our driving habits?  Maybe, but in the UK its price will prevent it from becoming a best seller.  £8,000+ on the road is way too much for your correspondent whose second car (which the Smart would replace) currently does no more than 50 or 60 miles a week. I may be wrong, but I suspect the same applies to many other would-be buyers; our second cars, which rarely if ever transport more than 2 people, are the target for the Smart and – at least here in the UK – the current on the road price for the Smart is too high for the majority of people for which it would be a second car.  But, put it on the road at £4995 and, I suspect, it would be a runaway success.  I don’t know if the sums would work out at that price but you never know, it might just be enough to persuade enough of us to downsize, to begin to make a difference. 



Smart facts












Expert Analysis





A Review of the Global Market for City Cars
A new report providing an invaluable review of the main developments in the market globally, along with an assessment of different maker’s strategies and likely future volume levels.  The key markets of Western Europe and Japan are examined, along with other emerging regions. A useful look forward to 2005 completes the picture. Company coverage: Daewoo, DaimlerChrysler, Fiat, Ford, Ford Th!nk, Th!nk Neighbourhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs), General Motors, Hyundai, Renault







 


  • Micro Compact Car smart GmbH concluded 2001 with the best results since the launch of the smart in October 1998 but is still losing money. Break-even is planned for 2004
  • Smart sales increased by almost 14 percent to 116,162 units in 2001.
  • Last year the markets with the strongest sales were Germany (46,705) and Italy (30,031), followed by France (8,738) and Switzerland (6,131). Double-digit growth rates were achieved in Holland (16.9 percent), Italy (16.1 percent), Austria (14.6 percent) and Spain (13.8 percent).
  • The first right-hand drive smarts for the British and Japanese markets were made last year. The smart k, which was presented in Tokyo in October, offers customers in the local market high tax advantages due to its dimensions.
  • Cars from smart are now sold in 14 countries, most of which are in Europe. After Portugal and Sweden as new markets in 2001, market entry in 2002 is planned in Croatia, Hungary and Taiwan.
  • Around a fifth of sales are accounted for by the cabriolet version. Last year almost 25 percent of smart models had common-rail direct injection.
  • In Hambach, France (Lorraine region), a new manufacturing concept was realised for producing the Smart. The system partners have settled around the core manufacturing area for the Smart which covers a plus-shape in the centre of the factory compound, and are integrated in the processes. The smartville industrial estate was officially opened on 27.10.1997.
  • The extension of smartville, which was started last year, will be continued in 2002. MCC smart will have invested a total of around 80 million euro at the site by the end of the year, securing the jobs of around 2,000 employees (MCC France: 750, system partners: 1,250). The money invested in 2002 will mainly flow into the production of the new smart roadster, which will also be produced in smartville.
  • The extension of the brand from one model range – the smart City-Coupé and smart Cabrio – to three model ranges is at the centre of the medium and long term term strategy for smart. In addition to the roadster, which will go on sale from 2003, MCC smart is working on a concept for a small car together with the Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, which will have its market premiere in 2004.