Life in the Tiny Lane

I just spent a weekend driving Daimler's French-made two-seater. If your goal in life is making people happy, or at least making them smile or laugh, then the Smart is the micro car for you.

The Smart is the smallest car around, just 106 inches long. I have had longer couches. While it is short, it is tall, 60.7 inches, so it has plenty of headroom.

The Smart comes with a three-cylinder, 70-horsepower engine that delivers 40 miles per gallon in city driving and 46 on the highway under the current 2007 government standard, and 33/40 city/highway under the new 2008 rules. I got 47 mpg. That is right, 47, in steady highway driving at 60 to 65 miles per hour for nearly 300 miles. While the car takes premium fuel, this hardly matters when it takes so little to fill it up.

All this economy comes at a price. A recent article in AutoWeek magazine cautioned: "The first time you get sucked into a semi's slipstream or feel the squirrelly hell that is a stretch of grooved pavement pulling at the 4.5 inch wide front tires, you're going to wish you had packed a change of Underoos. And though the electronically limited top speed is 90 mph, it's really very hard to steer effectively above 75 because you're shaking with fear."

So the Smart is probably not the car for you if you spend a lot of time on the interstates. I drove hundreds of miles on a limited-access parkway (55 mph speed limit) that is restricted to passenger cars, and I went a steady 60-65, occasionally running at 70 or a notch higher. I even drove above the speed limit on a wet road (light rain and later light snow). On anything but an interstate packed with 18-wheelers the Smart is viable transportation.

The Smart only has room for two, with some space in back for cargo. It fits in small parking places, which is why they love it in Paris and Rome. The Smart is also cute.

I passed some NASCAR racers and crews in New York City, who were trying to show the city slickers what they are missing. They pointed, laughed and waved as I passed. I rolled down my window and yelled, "Wanna race?" They yelled back, "We'll give you a head start."

If you want attention, the Smart is the car for you. Of course, not everyone has a positive response. One woman snarled at it and kept calling it "wimpy."

While it may be controversial, Smart has not been a sales success to date. Daimler builds it in a factory that has the capacity to turn out more than 200,000 units a year, and actual production has been half that number. Since its inception, the project has lost maybe $5 billion to $6 billion. I figure that its U.S. distributor, the Penske Automotive Group, will be able to sell 25,000 to 30,000 a year in this market. Automotive News recently quoted Daimler Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche as saying that more than 30,000 Americans have already put down deposits for the vehicle.

Three versions of Smart will come to the U.S.: the base-model Pure coupe starting at $11,590, the better-equipped Passion coupe at $13,590, and the Passion convertible starting at $16,590. I imagine TV and Hollywood people and rich greenies will buy one, drive it around for some publicity photos and keep driving their 12-cylinder BMWs. At those prices, however, it is not hard to envision many ordinary Americans buying a copy and using it for local errands.

Smart is an important vehicle because it tells Detroit something about building a small car here, and we are going to need small cars. Congress has just passed a 35 mpg Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency standard by 2020. To attain a fleet efficiency of 35 mpg you need to sell a few hundred thousand 45-mpg cars in order to offset your sales of bigger cars and performance vehicles. Nor can manufacturers depend on imports of tiny cars, not with the dollar collapsing against the euro and sliding against the yen.

Ford just canceled a plan to build a new factory for small cars here in North America. That was the right decision. You do not want to construct a brand new factory with brand new tooling and even a brand new lunchroom, because that is too costly for a small car, which has small profit margins. General Motors learned that lesson with its Saturn start-up. How to do it right? Redeploy one of those factories you are shuttering and refurbish it to build a new small car.

Smart is showing Detroit that a small car must be more that four wheels, a trunk and some cheap seats. It must be cute. It must make people feel good, smile and be willing to pay as much for a small car as a larger one. The old Volkswagen Beetle had that magic. So does the new Mini. And a small car from Detroit must have four seats, not two like the Smart.

Here's a thought: Set up a joint production venture — Chrysler, Ford, and GM — and build variations of the same car. That could mean lower labor costs and high three-shift production. At this point, I think that the government would allow such a project.

To be small, you need to be smart.