The smartCar: This Car Ain’t Big Enough For the Both of Us
When Gary Numan sang, “Here in my car, I feel safest of all,” he probably wasn’t singing about the smartCar. This reeeeeeeeeeeeealy tiny jalopy has been available for years in Europe, and it’s finally getting a full roll-out on these shores.
The $11k-plus car is the result of a partnership between Mercedes and Swatch (seriously). I guess that means that if you can’t find a parking space, you can take a band out of your glove compartment, attach it to the car, and just wear it on your wrist. While the design may be innovative and earth-friendly (both, no doubt, good things), it doesn’t strike me as the safest thing on the road; as was recently pointed out to me, it’s probably not the first thing you’d want to drive down the New Jersey Turnpike among the 18-wheelers. It makes the Mini Cooper look like an Abrams tank; the overall design scheme would seem to have been “coffin with a transmission.”