It's true, I'm completely taken with the Smart Car. I've posted about it before and had literally dozens of conversations since returning from Europe in 2001 after a term abroad in college. Spending 14 weeks over in mostly Italy, I saw Smarts EVERYWHERE, and fell in love with their goofy small size, their fun and ridiculous paint jobs, and my perception of their must-be fuel efficiency. Anyway, this is the year of the Smart here in America, with the first dealerships opening stateside (they've been sold in Canada for over a year now) and the first Smarts rolling out onto US roads. A few weeks back I had a huge fit of envy as a little white Smart passed me on the Merritt Parkway headed north towards Middletown, and the fit was followed by days of dreaming up my purchase of my very own Smart (a plan still in the making).
This is all preamble to posting a little video I found on Slate today, their review of a Smart after driving it around San Francisco for a week. Here's the video:
And here are a couple of my favorite lines from the accompanying article:
"...Traverse the city for just 10 or 20 minutes in the Smart and the truth will hit you like a Hummer on its way to the repo lot. While just large enough to realize, on the inside, the comforts of a sedan, the Smart is perhaps the first modern, street-legal car small enough to completely upend your relationship with the city."
"At times it felt like cheating -- like I was the mayor or a diplomat or I had a secret key to every neighborhood, like a metropolitan god had blessed my weary soul. Seriously, it was heady."
