The Smart car is coming

Sure, the tiny autos are perfectly suited for the narrow lanes of Paris and Rome. But here in the land of freeways and monster SUVs, are we ready to downsize so far?

By Katharine Mieszkowski

Read more: Environment, Politics, News, Cars, Katharine Mieszkowski

Nov. 12, 2007 | DALLAS -- Everything's bigger in Texas, including, surprisingly, the interest in the itsy-bitsy car known as the Smart. In January, the miniature two-seat cars that dot the narrow lanes of Europe will make their way across the Atlantic and go on sale at 70 dealerships across America. For the past seven months, the Smart, which is made by Mercedes, has been embarked on a 50-city road show, offering test drives, photo ops and hype worthy of a monster-truck rally.

On a bright Saturday morning, a fleet of the tiny cars is on display at Mockingbird Station, one of Dallas' prefab entertainment and lifestyle complexes, thick with restaurants, movie theaters, stores and lofts. More than 100 Texans are waiting to test-drive the Smart model called Fortwo, whose price starts at $11,600. Many wannabe drivers are armed with cameras, as if they're here hoping to catch a glimpse of an exotic animal at the zoo.

Charlie Barnhardt, a big, bald man in snakeskin cowboy boots and a hunting cameo shirt with birds on it, drove an hour and a half from Greenville in his Jeep Grand Cherokee to see the Smart. Barnhardt, who runs a welding shop and hopes soon to retire, gives this verdict. "They're cute," he chuckles with a sweet smile. "I think it would go over good" in Texas.

Here in the land of the big pickup, the cuteness factor is turning a lot of heads for the smallest-horsepower vehicle offered by a major automaker. Irene Zeilan, a 40-something redhead, commutes five miles to her job at Texas Instruments in a 1988 Ford Bronco. But she recently bought a house in the burbs and will soon be making a 25-mile slog to work. So she's planning to shrink her ride and is thrilled by the microcars. "The time is right for this kind of car here," she says.

That's Mercedes' thinking, too. For years, the Smart car has roamed the roads of France, Italy and Germany, as well as Malaysia, South Africa and Canada -- 36 countries in all. Now the German automaker believes rising gas prices have propelled American drivers into recovery from their SUV binge. It believes we're finally ready to downsize -- way, way down.

But still there's something about the Smart car that seems to contradict the American way of life. We are a frontier country of wide-open spaces and eight-lane freeways. Want to go green? Sure, as long as it's with a 6,000-square-foot mansion with solar panels and a hybrid SUV. Besides, we're not Europeans. We don't drive cars that resemble toy poodles. We know all about the geopolitical crises of oil and the environmental fallout of all those carbon-dioxide emissions and exhaust fumes, but we demand a lot of metal and horsepower to keep us feeling safe and secure.

After all, the SUV craze was fueled in large part by the feeling that big cars were safer, and despite being mightily debunked, those sentiments die hard. An early Car and Driver review of the Smart Fortwo pronounced it "scary," while suggesting that only coastal snobs trying to navigate the narrow streets and limited parking of cities like Boston and San Francisco would settle for something this small. "Just how many urban fashionistas are there?" the reviewer sniffed.

"Cars have gotten incrementally smaller, but this is a quantum leap smaller," says Philip Reed, senior consumer advice editor for Edmunds.com. The two-seater measures just 8.8 feet long -- a whopping total of 106 inches. It's 5.1 feet tall and wide. The Smart's often compared to a golf cart, except with heated leather seats, a sunroof and a nice stereo. Yet its truly diminutive size has inspired other admirers to liken it to a roller skate or a bowling shoe. "For two people there's room," says Brandon Dye, executive editor of AutomotiveTrends.com. "It's not a torture cell by a long shot. But Americans are used to our big cars."

Fears about the Smart's being like a cue ball in an accident on a typical American freeway are its biggest drawback. Because it weighs a mere 1,800 pounds, some drivers will never overcome the horrific vision of a collision between a Smart and, say, a Toyota Land Cruiser, which clocks in at 5,700 pounds. "I like big trucks," says Pedro Caballero, checking out the Smarts in Dallas. Caballero owns a P.T. Cruiser, the smallest thing he has ever driven. "You're up so high. You feel safe."

Video: Will New Yorkers buy the Smart car?

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