THERE aren't many cars that come my way that my wife decides she would quite like to own - apart, perhaps from those that you would need to be a lottery winner to buy.
But the smart forfour ticked all the right boxes for her, and at £8,900 it's hardly overpriced.
A week with the little car left me with the same opinion, even though the test car had the smallest engine in the range - 1.1-litres and just three-cylinders - and came in the basic "pulse" trim.
In fact I was slightly dubious about the size of the engine as I knew I had a lot of motorway miles to cover that week.
But it proved to be a revelation. Acceleration, while not being rapid, is certainly acceptable and once on the motorway this little car is quite happy to sit at the legal 70mph all day and, in fact, is happy to cruise at 80-plus with no problems where legal.
smart made its name with its two-seater city car which is such a success in congested cities like Rome because it is small enough to make parking easier.
The forfour is the company's first venture into the small family hatchback market and, like its baby brother, is a car you cannot mistake for anything else.
In silver and black my test car was definitely distinctive and certainly got a lot of looks. If you are happy simply with black you can have the same car for £1,000 less.
All forfours are nicely put together and have a quality finish to them, which is probably not surprising as they come under the Mercedes-Benz umbrella.
Inside there is as much passenger space as in a much larger hatchback, due partly to the clever sliding rear seat.
If you are carrying four or five people and little luggage you slide the seat as far back as possible - giving exceptional leg room for a car which is just over 12 feet long.
If you have to carry large items but no rear passengers you just slide the whole thing forward.
The interior is stylish although there are a few things missing which you would get on more expensive cars. You have a speedometer, rev counter, petrol gauge and clock, for example but no temperature gauge or trip meter.
These are things you could live without, but the one thing that did present me with a problem was the lack of a rear parcel shelf - which meant anything left in the luggage area could be seen by potential thieves.
This problem has obviously been raised before because smart tells me that pulse spec cars built from April onwards can have a shelf as a factory fitted option and they will come as standard on the higher spec passion models.
On the road the three-cylinder engine has a distinctive sound to it and is definitely a willing worker. The excellent power to weight ratio of the car means it feels more like a 1.4-litre model than a 1.1-litre.
The five-speed gearbox allows plenty of flexibility and the handling is impressive. And while it doesn't have the same parking flexibility of its two-seater brother a small turning circle means it is pretty good in tight spaces.
All forfour models come with an Electronic Stability Programme as standard as well as driver and passenger airbags. Unusually for a small car you also get disc brakes all round.
The icing on the cake with this car is that it will average more than 51 miles per gallon, so not only is it inexpensive to buy it is also cheap to run.
If you feel you need a larger engine there is a 1.3-litre four-cylinder and 1.4-litre four-cylinder as well as a 1.5-litre 95bhp diesel.
But for real value-for-money the 1.1-litre has to be one of the best motoring bargains around.
FAST FACTS
smart forfour 1.1 pulse
Price: £8,995
Mechanical: 75bhp, 1,124cc, 3cyl petrol engine driving front wheels via 5spd manual gearbox
Max speed: 103mph
0-62mph: 13.4 secs
Combined mpg: 51.4
Insurance group: 4
CO2 emissions: 130g/km
BiK rating: 15%
Warranty: 3yrs/ unlimited mileage; 6yrs anti-rust