The Gadgets Page

The Smart Car Road Show came to Park City, Utah, so we took a drive up there to test drive the new Smart Cars that will be available here in the United States soon. You can see the video here:

Embed this video on your website – Download this video for your iPod

Driving the Smart Car felt a lot like driving a Mini Cooper. It had that go-cart feel. Even though we only stayed within the parking lot, I could really feel the road, so that makes me wonder what it would feel like to go 65 mph in it. Would the little car just vibrate so much that I wouldn’t be able to feel my extremities?

No matter, this is NOT a car for long road trips unless you’re going alone. There’s barely room for one suitcase in the trunk. The sun roof is large, however. You can’t open it, but it makes you feel like there is more room in the car than there actually is.

Despite all that, it was a FUN car to drive. I thought it was a manual transmission, but it is a strange mixture between manual and automatic. When I drove it, I used the automatic mode, but there is supposed to be a manual mode as well (but no clutch to contend with).

For being such a small car, there was plenty of room for me. When the seat was all the way back, I could barely touch the pedals, so for a taller person, there should be plenty of room. Of course, there’s no room for more than one friend, but most of the time, we’re alone in our cars, aren’t we?

The big question for me is cup holders. Does the Smart Car have cup holders? Yes, they have two good sized cup holders within easy reach. This feature alone puts the Smart Car head and shoulders above every Volkswagen I have ever owned.

The car I drove did not have a glove box, but the guy driving with me assured me that there would be a glove box in the final models released in the USA. The Passion and Cabrio models come with air conditioning, but it’s not available on the base model. None of them have cruise control.

The Smart Car feels like a movie star because it has been used as a joke in so many movies. Seeing it close up is a lot like seeing a real movie star close up. It’s not quite as pretty or tall as you remember it, but it’s exciting to tell your friends about it anyway.

Here is a great video of the interior of the Smart Car. This unit has the glove box and if you look carefully, you can see the two cup holders on the floor in front of the gear shift.