2017 Smart ForTwo Cabrio new car reviews

We don't often venture into the realm of micro cars, but out test car this week was a 2017 Smart ForTwo Cabrio. It's made for urban living, but you see them all the time in not-so-urban habitats. It looks like it should have some moxie with a turbocharged 3-cylinder engine and twin-clutch transmission.

Other staff views

JG Pasterjak
Production/Art Director

If you were to judge the overall goodness or badness of the Smart Car by our media loaner, you probably wouldn’t be very impressed. Our test car was the most heavily optioned version of the most expensive model, and as such the price had bloated to nearly $24,000. The real beauty of the Smart is that it’s the antithesis of bloat.

Also, we understand that this is not a car for everyone. It’s a specific answer to a specific question, but if you’re asking that question, boy is it an effective answer. The Smart’s real strength is its size—or, technically, lack of it. With a turning circle under 23 feet in diameter, the thing can practically spin on its own axis. And with a length of only around nine feet, suddenly parking options that were heretofore unimaginable are now attainable. For the urban commuter in a dense environment, the Smart may be the ultimate weapon.

The passenger compartment is for all intents and purposes “normal sized.” The cargo area behind the seats is surprisingly roomy and square, although with our convertible model access was tighter than with the hard top coupe. The passenger seat also folds flat, extending your cargo area for long items to nearly five feet. Smart does not list clown capacity on their media website, but we’re sure you could squeeze several in there.

So while our test model may not have been the best execution of the idea, the idea is still solid. You can get leftover 2016 Smart coupes for under $15,000 at the moment, and suddenly that doesn’t seem like such a crazy idea.

Tom Suddard
Publisher

I enjoyed this thing, but every time I tried to figure out why, I just got more confused.

Was it the thrilling driving experience? Well, no. The transmission, though better than earlier Smarts, still shifts with the nuance of a 16-year-old at their first autocross. The steering is so numb it feels like a product of the E-Z-GO golf cart company, and the three-cylinder engine idles so rough I would have believed I was sitting in a two-cylinder diesel yacht tender.

Was it the ravishingly good looks? You be the judge… but I’m just going to assume those weren’t what drew me in.

The interior? Well, it was nice–by 2005 standards. Despite a fairly recent update, the Smart ForTwo still has the interior of a 10-year-old Hyundai Accent. Also, I’m not sure what Smart killed and draped over the dash, but it wasn’t doing anything for me. Short-haired dog, maybe? At least it had a racy tachometer to let me know that no, really, the transmission actually was downshifting that aggressively as I rolled up to each red light.

The convertible top? Let’s not even go there. It was like a big sunroof that diminished the practicality that the hatchback would normally have (and made the trunk harder to open).

That brings me back to why I liked this tiny, weird, awkward car–I guess I bought into the Smart lifestyle. You know how golf carts are tons of fun even though they are slow and drive poorly? That same freedom is what makes Smart cars enjoyable. After just 20 minutes in the car, I was doing U-turns on two-lane back roads just because I could, and parking sideways in every parking spot purely because it fit between the lines. People don’t buy the Smart because it’s a good car, they buy it because it fits in small places. Drive it with that attitude, and you’ll have fun. Don’t, and you’ll wonder why you didn’t just buy a Honda Civic.

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