Specialty File
Oceans expand, the planet grows, and Europe seems awfully far away and strange when something like the Smart roadster turns up.
Hey, really small cars don't translate well in America. That's not news. Nobody here is willing to cram, especially when there are kids, kayaks, and preassembled roof trusses to haul. And who wants to be shaking hands with St. Peter while they floss your remains out of the grille of a Hummer?
Nope, give us something that lets us see over the next car, perhaps into the next ZIP Code if possible. Small cars are for the poor and the soon-to-be-squashed. The Smart looks as if somebody bolted an engine and four wheels onto a Lincoln Navigator's glove box!
Still, based on what we saw at a recent classic-car show in our neck of the woods, if we'd owned a Smart franchise, right now we'd be out shopping for an island instead of slaving over this word processor. The crowd around the Smart roadster was four-deep all night long. Grandmothers elbowed aside policemen to watch the vinyl roof electrically accordion into the trunk. People goggled at the Smart's exposed Nike swoosh of silver structural side spars and its buxom Lotus Elise-like fenders. They marveled at the stalk-mounted, snail-eyed gauges and the wonky scribble of red seat fabric. They oohed in perfect unison when we unhitched the two roof rails between which the top slides, and aahed in chorus when we stowed them in their special plastic mounts in the forward trunk.
Then they demanded to know how much and where to send the check. The first answer is $24,254 for the 80-hp version pictured here (or $20,673 without the air conditioning, fancy 16-inch alloy wheels, silver powder-coated exterior frame spars, and heated seats). Believe it or not, there's also a 60-hp roadster starting at $16,914, with dull black spars and steel wheels.
Or, more accurately, write the check for about G15,000 to G18,000 because you'll be sending it to Europe. Even though DaimlerChrysler owns the Smart factory in Hambach, France, none of the models, including the roadster, the glass fastback roadster coupe, and the gumdrop-shaped Smart City, is sold in America. Smart spokesman Hubert Kogel says the roadster wasn't designed for the U.S. and lacks some vital emissions equipment.
It's a shame because the 1851-pound steel-frame Smart really is the modern incarnation of the Austin-Healey bug-eye Sprite. It's cheap, it's small, and it's not terribly fast. We're talking 10.7 seconds to 60 mph and a quarter-mile of 17.4 seconds at 76 mph, coincidentally almost exactly the same numbers as a Hummer H2's. The Hummer enjoys a slightly better curb-weight-to-horsepower ratio of 21.2, but the roadster will suck out your earwax on the skidpad, pulling 0.91 g.
Mercedes-Benz builds the roadster's rear-mounted SOHC six-valve 698cc inline-three fitted with a thimble-size Garrett GT-12 turbocharger, which offers up a peak seven pounds of boost. The engine is more or less the size of J.Lo's Gucci handbag and, at 139 pounds, probably weighs about the same. A six-speed robotically shifted manual can be set on automatic or shifted by the driver using either the gear selector or the steering-wheel paddles. Select neutral, and insert the key between the seats to start it. Select neutral to remove the key, and be sure to grab the parking brake or the roadster rolls wherever gravity has a use for it.
The Smart's powertrain feels breezier away from the light and under passing than its track numbers indicate. No doubt that has something to do with your sitting low enough to count other cars' lug nuts. The engine also sounds right while winding up, like a high-end sport bike with low-end pipes. During upshifts the waste gate blows with charming little chirps, and the car squirts quickly through traffic.
More expensive sequential manuals from BMW and Maserati get more flustered than the Smart's smart gearbox and are jerkier puttering through town. The Smart smoothly engages its cogs and softly slips its automatic clutch. Don't bother with the transmission's full-auto mode; the computer has been programmed to short-shift for maximum fuel economy. We slapped the paddles practically off the column and slashed the roadster's mileage down to . . . 33 mpg. If everyone drove a Smart, Saudi Arabia would be back in the goat business.
The roadster loves a good back-road romp, but the wind blast when the roof is down turns into a typhoon above 70 mph. Assisted by an electric motor, the optional power steering remains light even at the apex, although its precision is good enough to clip the painted lines as needed. The body rolls and pitches about as much as a granite countertop, and the ride is correspondingly taut, but there's enough give in the shocks to make the roadster livable, even here in the People's Republic of Potholes.
So why wouldn't you want one? Even though we fit in it just fine, the Smart is small. It's some 20 inches shorter than a Mazda Miata and 18.1 inches tinier than a Toyota MR2 Spyder, both of which are more than three seconds faster to 60 mph (C/D, July 2000). The three-cubic-foot rear trunk is partly filled by the folded top; the front trunk is two cubic feet. Don't pack much more than a few daydreams for luggage.
Or, if they ever put the Smart on sale in America, buy a Hummer and pack the Smart as luggage.
