The biggest thing on the tiny Smart Fortwo is the wide grin on the front grille, just one of the quirky touches that make this city coupe a fun drive.
Introduced to Canada in 2004, the Mercedes Smart Fortwo is perhaps the smallest car on the market, and still quite a head turner.
The model that I drove for a week was the mid-range, called the Passion. It was equipped with their Touchscreen Navigation system, a Surround Sound System, Heated seats, and "design 6" alloy wheels. With its funky dials and retro colours, in total the car was $20,315 excluding tax.
Advertised fuel economy is 5.9L/100KM in the City, 4.8L/100KM on the Highway and a combined 5.4L/100KM. Mercedes Smart advertises that the car can do 600KM on its 33L fuel tank.
Unfortunately, I never really got a chance to test that out, but in stop-and-go traffic on the 401 and city driving combined, I was able to get 6.3L/100KM. On a drive from Oshawa to Kingston and back -- keeping up with traffic -- I was able to get 5.6L/100KM.
The Fortwo is really for two
At first glance of the Smart Car, I sort of wondered how tiny the inside would be, but once I got in, it felt more spacious than one would expect. Thereare virtually no blind spots with the large driver and passenger windows. Of course with the large windows, to save weight, Smart made them pillarless -- meaning there is no metal framing the window.
That also made the door lighter, so a few times, I found myself having to open the door a second time and close the door a bit harder. Unfortunately, except for a soft, constant beeping, there was no other warning that a door wasn't closed properly. So when it was beeping at me, I had to stop and try to figure out what it was, and heard a bit more road noise that I normally heard and figured out it was the door.
The seats in the Fortwo were comfortable for regular and short distance commute. And both headroom and leg room were ample for a car that is no larger than an office desk.
The Passion Fortwo comes equipped with a Panoramic Roof, with a sunshade, that gives it that feeling of being bigger than it actually is. Because of its small size, only the driver gets an adjustable arm rest, which comes in handy when you're driving along the highway.
The gas and brake pedals were perfectly spaced for regular footwear, but if you were to wear winter boots, because of the small size of the car, you may find your foot touching the brake pedal, when you intend to stay on the gas pedal.
Good layout of controls
All the controls were easy to use, and easy to access. Though the power window controls on the driver side were a bit awkward to get at through their placement on the door.
The fan speed and temperature controls for the A/C and heat were a two-lever system with a retro look. The car also had an analog clock in what they called a "cockpit clock" which stood separate from the dash, and a rev counter beside it, in its own little case, that added to the whole cool feel.
The Touchscreen navigation was a fun toy to use. It was not only your built in GPS system, but was also you CD, MP3 system, Bluetooth Cellphone connection, and DVD Player. There were some flaws with the radio, searching for a station by signal was tricky to use, because there was no dial – but there were other ways to search for stations, so you didn't have to use that function.
The plug for the MP3 player was hidden nicely in the lockable glovebox, so that it was out of sight from prying eyes, and the CD Player was hidden beautifully behind the Touchscreen, only revealing itself like something from a sci-fi program, by pushing the eject button on the frame of the screen.
Touchscreen blues
As a safety precaution, many of the toys found on the Touchsceen were disabled when the car was driving -- which is good if you're driving by yourself, but if you've got a passenger, you may want to change the destination point on the GPS, which means you'd have to pull over and put the car in park to make the adjustment.
Though small in size, the Fortwo can carry two full-size travel suitcases, without sacrificing passenger comfort, and still have room for a carry-on or a briefcase for business travel.
And the Smart has an interesting cargo method. When you open the back, it is a two step process. You can simply open up the glass, and load things into the "trunk" that way, or you can open up the entire back by simply open the window and lower the tailgate, like a pickup truck.
So you can, quite literally, host your own tailgate party, as the tailgate can support up to 220lbs.
This feature also offers a practicality use. The passenger seat can fold completely flat, allowing you to load in an item that is 4 feet long by closing the tailgate. Or, you can carry an item that is 7 feet long, by driving the car with the tailgate down. You'd have to attach a red-flag or some sort of warning marker to vehicles behind you that you have longer item.
Designed for city driving, the Smart Fortwo is very quick on its feet. The little gas powered engine can accelerate quickly and can keep up with traffic without too much trouble.
I found that the Fortwo moved like a ballerina. Maybe not a prima ballerina when it came to some of the worst bumps on the road, but you could easily avoid most of them. The transmission, though a bit jerky from first to second in its full automatic mode, was very quick to respond when you put it in the manual mode -- giving it a boost of speed when you needed it.
The Passion and Brabus model lines come equipped with paddle shifters on the steering wheel, which made it very easy to get the car into the gear needed. I found that getting the revs up to 2500 to 3000 RPMs, I was able to get a smooth and comfortable gear change.
If there is one thing that that could be improved with the small engine, it would be the fuel. The original Fortwo back in 2004 came equipped with a Diesel powered engine, and with diesel now being cheaper than gas, it would be good to see that option come back to Canada.
The 2011 Fortwo runs on Premium fuel only, though with its 33 litre fuel tank, it is still much cheaper to run than its competition. And with a passenger, the engine didn't suffer at all, as you might think a small engine would.
On dry and wet local roads, the car handled very well. On the highway, I felt a few times subject to strong cross-breezes, due to its higher height and shorter body. Because of that, if you're intending to do a long distance drive with the car, make sure that you have a passenger who is able to take over the driving. But road noise was virtually undetectable, which was very surprising in a car this size.
Ground clearance on the car is actually really good for its size. You could put on a very good set of snow tires and be able to still drive the car through several inches of snow, without getting stuck.
And with the small body, the Fortwo has a very tight turning radius, and can easily get into tight areas that would be trouble on a normal car. Sitting behind the wheel, you almost have the same height as you do in a minivan, and that helps to add to the visibility, making parallel parking, and parking in general very easy.
Cleaning this car was probably the easiest thing ever. With its small size, I was able to get the front washed of the car washed in 5 minutes with only a handful of water, and not even get a speck of water on me.
Which means that if you live in an apartment complex with a parking garage, you wouldn't need to spend money on a car wash – all you would need is a medium sized pot of water, and a sponge – and you could have the car clean in 30 minutes.
2011 Smart Fortwo Coupe
Type: Sub-compact/Super-Mini
Price Range: $13,900 – $20,900
Engine: 1.0 litre 3 Cylinder
Horsepower: 70 HP
Transmission: 5 Speed Automatic with Manual Mode
Drive: Rear-wheel drive
Competitors: Toyota Yaris 3 Door, Scion iQ (coming soon to Canada)
Body Types: Coupe and Cabriolet, and three model lines
Safety Features: 6 standard airbags, four wheel ABS, electronic stability program and a specially designed safety frame which makes the car as safe as its direct competitors.
