Around any ‘big’ birthday it is hard to avoid introspection. Should I recycle more? Put a jumper on rather than turn the thermostat up? Should I go as far as to drive more eco-friendly cars?
If you are approaching a big birthday, before similar nagging questions lead you to a mid life crisis, can I suggest you test drive a Smart car.
There is something about walking up to a Smart car, resplendent in bright primary colours that makes you feel just a little righteous. This car has to be eco-friendly. It’s so small and jolly! Suddenly, empathising with cyclists becomes a possibility.
The styling has successfully stood the test of time – it’s been 7 years with only minor tweaks and yet it still turns heads. Despite its small size, it can also be used normally. The seats are comfortable, even for large adults and there is ample leg room. The head room is tight for me as I am 6” 3’ but anyone under 6” will be fine. It’s road holding, refinement and speed on trunk roads is adequate if not impressive for a car that our car park manager called ‘the roller skate.’
The chunky little steering wheel, bolt-upright seating position, and driving dynamics akin to a bumper car, all continue to make you think you’re doing something good for the environment. The door handle plastic and mechanism is nasty but I wasn’t as disappointed by it as I was by the Volkswagen Fox; I took the cheap door handles and eccentric audio system as a sign that I was ‘doing the right thing.’ Doing good stuff always feels a bit cheap. Like eco-friendly bin bags that tear so easily, or recycled loo roll and it’s abrasive surface.
This theme continued when I approached junctions as the green traffic light switched to amber. It is de rigueur in the busier parts of London to accelerate over the junction when this happens, otherwise the car behind is so surprised they have to emergency stop. But, it’s just so un-Smart Car to race over like that. I never saw how close the many emergency stops came to my back bumper because I was too busy wincing at the thought of the impact; it feels like there is no protection behind you. Even though I should say the Smart has a reasonable 3 stars from N CAP for safety.
If you have the hood down on a convertible version, it obscures your rear view mirror. The silver lining is that you can’t worry about what you can’t see, but combined with the poor steering lock it makes parallel parking doubly difficult.
So it may be best to keep it up, not just for parking but in the City, because I became convinced that the shape of the Smart car means the air flow draws congestion fumes into the cabin much more than other cabriolets; it made me nauseous.
At least I think it was the fumes making me ill, it may have been the appalling automatic gearbox. It doesn’t matter whether you select the clutchless manual or fully automatic setting, at gear change time the gear box disengages so the nose of the car dips, it counts to two (you can count a long) then engages a new gear and the car rears up like an unhappy horse. You’ll do that three times or more just getting to 30 mph and if you suffer from sea sickness you won’t like it.
A few hours in this car and you will realise that won’t be needing any extra jumpers. Mid life crisis over.
What’s the market like?
There are over 1,500 used Smart cars on the market at any one time. 10 year old cars start at £1,000 and some can be found with mileages of under 50,000. At the other end of the spectrum, ‘Passion’ spec cars with a list price of £10,500 when new can be found as ‘ex-demonstrators’ for £9,000 at main dealers.
What else can this budget buy?
The electric G-Wiz is simply not as practical or safe. So you only really have Toyota’s Aygo or IQ, or the Peugeot 107. Looking at 2 year old cars, the IQ is a huge £8,000 with average mileage of 5-10,000 whereas the Smart is as much as £1,500 less albeit with slightly higher mileage of up to 15,000. Whereas the 107s are only £5,000, but surprisingly high average mileage of 20,000. So the only reason not to buy the capable Peugeot is if it doesn’t feel cool enough.
Summary
The Smart car, with a hard top and manual gear box is a funky little used car for those who can’t stand the idea of having another Fiesta. The soft top with automatic gearbox is a bad idea.
Words: Matthew Tumbridge