Smart, Which Never Really Was, Is Dead

Photo credit: Daimler
Photo credit: Daimler

From Car and Driver

My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Smart, which never was, is dead in these United States. And true to form, even the minicar brand's death is unsatisfying. It stumbled into its grave the same way it tripped into our country in 2008, with one unlovable model. For the last year or so, only the battery-electric version has been lingering on our shores.

I, like most sentient beings, shed no tears for Smart. In one way or another, I've been living with, and sometimes praying for, its death almost as soon as it was birthed. As a publicity stunt, Smart decided that before it began selling cars in the U.S., it would bring a gaggle of Europe-spec two-seaters to circulate around the outside of Cobo Center during the Detroit auto show. Said one PR guy who did not work for Smart: "All it would take is one strategic collision with a Ford F-250 to put an end to the whole idea of Smart." Back then, Smart's overlord, DaimlerChrysler, envisioned an array of Smart models, including a proposed quasi-SUV enticingly named Formore, to swim among the lumbering beasts of the American highway. Instead, the company only ever imported the Fortwo, a car with a striking resemblance to a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe. The U.S. would never get the Smart Roadster, which was at least cute and slow in an Austin-Healey Bugeye Sprite kind of way. We never got the Forfour, a four-seat, rebodied Mitsubishi Colt. Yeah, probably no loss there.

This meant that the company would try to make a go of it in a very large country with a single very small model that was initially the idea of the people who brought you Swatch watches. Eventually, shoppers would learn of the Smart's not-stellar fuel economy and its horrific transmission, and that quicker, faster, more fuel-efficient, and far more capable vehicles existed. But the Smart's primary problem was its diminutive size. Keenly aware of consumer fears of being squashed like a warm grape by a Ford Excursion, the company ferried journalists to Europe to witness a controlled crash of a Smart so they could spread word of its survival. But I missed that particular trip because Smart had other plans for me.

I'd recently helped launch a new car magazine with Eddie Alterman, and the Smart brain trust felt it would be a good venue to highlight the fun nature of its product. So they signed me up for one of those frivolous cross-country rallies of the sort that prioritizes celebrity appearances and high-test douchiness over cars and speed. So among the Lamborghinis and Ferraris of the other participants (many of whom donned costumes for one reason or another over the course of the weeklong event) was a 41-hp diesel Smart car dressed up like an Easter egg and packed with two six-foot, two-inch American men and the world's worst automated-manual transmission. The novelty of piloting an ill-conceived product in inappropriate circumstances for an inconceivably long time wore off about 25 miles into the 2997-mile trip. We drank heavily each night to forget the day's interminable driving and to make much worse the next day's interminable driving. By Kansas, my co-driver and I were praying for the Smart to blow up or fail in any way spectacular enough to put an end to the slow droning that now dominated our lives. A 190-mile stint (about the max range of a Smart diesel) of foot-to-the-floor highway driving in 100-degree heat nearly did it. Traction-control- and ABS-malfunction warnings were followed by a furiously blinking engine-temperature light. I kept my foot to the floor. But it would not die. It just kept droning all the way to the Pacific. We considered pushing the thing into the ocean, but we were too frazzled to bother. Instead, we parked it and went to dinner, during which a bachelorette-party attendee sprayed us with beer from a penis-shaped squirt gun. When the story ran, we were threatened with a lawsuit by the rally's organizer. Those last two occurrences might not be the fault of the Smart.

We were not alone in quickly losing interest in the Smart. U.S. sales hit almost 25,000 the first year but then dropped precipitously and bounced around between 3000 and 10,000 for most of the decade. A chunk of those sales went to Daimler-controlled Car2Go car-sharing fleets.

Ah, but what if the Fortwo were an electric car? It's kind of a golf cart anyway, right? (Just without as much seating or enough space for the clubs.) Electrification should be this car's killer app. But when we tested a Smart ED (yes, "ED") in 2011, we found its range was insufficient for many daily commutes, its top speed was too low for highway driving, its acceleration to 60 mph was slower than a 1981 Chevy Chevette diesel's, and its braking from 70 mph couldn't be tested because it couldn't reach 70 mph. Also, at $599 per month, its lease price was higher eight years ago than a Mercedes C300's is today.

The electric version has improved since then (and ditched the "ED" moniker). Smart moved about 1300 of them last year.

From the July 2019 issue

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