A couple days ago, I had the privilege of stumbling across a dealership that sold the Smart car. Yes, that’s right, that toaster-sized German import that is loved by all sorts of Euro environmentalists who wear socks with their sandals, eat leaves, and hate Bush.
Needless to say, I’ve always been a skeptic of the Smart car, and of small, “cute” city cars in general. They seem like gimmicks, little toys built half-way for people who travel less than twelve feet a day. The Smart car just doesn’t seem like a car. Tourists like them, for crying out loud: when in Rome, they take pictures of Smarts like they’re part of the quaintness of Europe. If anything saps the life out of car, it’s being associated with geography in a bad way. The Yugo was a famous example of this effect: rather than being a normal European import, it was a souvenir you could buy from ex-Commies following the fall of Gorbochev’s birthmark. It was absolute rubbish.
Now I’m not explicitly comparing the Smart to the Yugo. The Smart does have a slightly larger and more muscular gerbil under the hood. It also has a working transmission, compared with the Yugo’s baseball bat in a bucket of coconuts. So does the Smart succeed where the Yugo failed in the field of quirky, cheap Euro imports?
I didn’t have the opportunity to drive the Smart, but I did have the opportunity to peruse the chic, oddly 70’s-styled showroom which had 3 models on display. The size of the cars made my butt cheeks cramp ahead of time. I’m almost as tall as they are long, and definitely taller than they are wide. Sure, they would be easy to park, but keep in mind the American parking space is still tailored for normal sized cars. The Smarts are built for the streets of Rome, Paris, and other EU metropolises where parking spaces are as common as Nascar fans and where the cops could care less if you parked on your own grandmother. Thus, the practical purpose of the Smart’s size falls flat on its face here in the US.
The second supposedly-brilliant aspect of the Smart is its fantastic gas mileage. 41 miles per gallon on the highway and 33 miles to the gallon in the city according to 2008 EPA standards. Frankly, that’s not stratospherically impressive as the marketing eggheads would like us to believe. The Honda Fit, with a much larger and more exciting engine, accomplishes 27 mpg in the city, which is not that far off from the Smart. And then there’s a devious duo of Smart secrets: the Smart takes premium fuel and has a mere 8.7 gallon fuel tank. The Fit takes regular fuel and has an 11 gallon tank. Then, of course, Honda has to stick it in the Smart’s strabismic little face even further with the best-kept secret in all of fuel efficiency: the Civic Hybrid. A brilliant, comfortable, and reasonably priced car, the Civic Hybrid gets 40/45 mpg. The gimmickry of Le Smart is beginning to show its mischievous little face.
Then, of course, there’s the environmental competition given by Toyota’s own ugly little gimmick, the Prius. It’s electro-petrol heart gets 46 miles to the filthy, rotten, polar bear killing petroleum-child gallon. I’m sorry, Daimler, but even the Prius has you beat when it comes to fuel economy. Yet another pockmark on the Smart’s all-recyclable body.
So if the size is irrelevant in the US, and the fuel economy is beaten by the Holy Prius, what advantages does the Smart have left? Price? Nah, the base MSRP, for the almost laughably basic ForTwo “Pure”, is around $12,000. Not massively impressive, considering it has as many bells and whistles as the Tata Nano. Looks and personality? Wait a second…
Let me first say I don’t think the Smart is good looking in the least. It looks like a cheap toaster on wheels, and its nose is ridiculous. I would be less embarrassed to drive down Pennsylvania Avenue in a pink dune buggy in Superman briefs than drive the Smart car around where I live. But to the Smart’s target consumer, it looks absolutely brilliant. You see, people today are in love with gimmickry. They love their multi-colored cell phones, their fuzzy dice, their Ikea furniture, their James Blunt records, and their Cafe Mocha Grandes. Thus it follows that they would love the Smart car, and that’s exactly what’s happened. Every car at that dealership was sold already.
So the end result of Mercedes’ huge marketing campaign is that people are buying the Smart car not because of its merits as an efficient, cheap, small car, but for the kitschy experience it offers. In my opinion, that’s no way to buy a car. Therefore, the Tarmac Philosopher gives it a thumbs-down.
4 Comments
February 28, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Don’t forget diesel cars like the VW golf get about 33/41 mpg. And with the cleaner diesel fuels, they can be okay emissions-wise.
February 29, 2008 at 5:06 am
I think the Smart would be a much better car had it been built and sold according to Nicolas Hayek’s initial vision - much cheaper to buy (ie less than 50% of the current price) and much better mpg.
It always appears to me that it was hijacked by MB and the Smart was twisted into an expensive urban fashion accessory, had the project stayed with VW it might have been a different - better beetle-like/car for the people - story.
February 29, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Hi,
Anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac.
May 30, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I like the smart car, for all the reasons you don’t like them lol, the truth is they are great cars, and the prius is a glorified overrated turd hearse of a car, yeah it gets great gas mileage…about the same as my moms old 84 mazda GLC, i have driven mercedes, lincons, hyundai’s, and the list goes on, and after going to the smart dealer, i would gladly trade my lincoln in for one, now i don’t have a problem with people wanting there FAT american cars that are built with the quality of a third world satellite dish and have the looks of a man named bubba, thats totally fine, whatever floats your boat.
and every body that i know that has a prius bought the car in hopes of 80 mpg…but all of them get 42/45 and all the people that i know that drive a smart are getting 55/60?…now how is the prius better? lol
me myself…i would buy a smart…but i have an addiction to speed…witch is why I’m getting a porsche…(small) and not american lol…i will never buy another american car…lol
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