We have a deisel. It gets, on average 65 mpg. It is my SO’s daily driver.
The transmission is different but we got used to it pretty fast.
We would buy another if we could get another deisel. (which looks doubtful).
I picked up a Smart Car on hire at Palma airport last September. I sat there for 15 minutes trying to figure out how to get it into gear. Any gear. It didn’t occur to me I had to flick the brake pedal in order to engage 1st.
Over here Smart Cars start at around £7K ($11.5K). If you like sub-compacts, and have a little more cash to spend, I believe the Toyota iQ will be available in the US from next year. Click on the options below left of the photo. This vehicle comes in around £9.6K ($15.8K) basic in the UK. It costs more but looks better.
More utility than most SUV’s? How do you mean?
Don’t all modern cars have a “crash cage” of some sort? The Smart seems safe for its size but the Honda Fit/Jazz scored better in both Euro NCAP and NHTSA crash tests, in all categories.
I was on a waiting list for the Smart but never got around to test-driving one (the closest dealer is 2 hours away). I begrudgingly acknowledged that the Fit would be a more practical car, and just as fuel-efficient. I’m happy with my new 2009 Fit so far.
I also test-drove other small cars and I thought the Nissan Versa had the best handling and power (I loved the CVT). The Yaris was nice too, the front seats seemed slightly more roomy than the others. But the Honda has the most practical and roomy interior (especially cargo space), and the best reliability and safety ratings.
A couple other things to consider:
If it snows where you live forget about driving in the winter unless the roads are bare.
If you take it to go shopping you better not buy more than 1 bag of anything. It has no trunk or back seat.
If you’re going to attempt to use a car seat in it you better see if it fits first. Plenty of car seats are a tight squeeze in compact cars as it is.
The Smart car has a decent amount of space behind the seats, according to this YouTube video.
Without looking at that video I can tell you the car will take two large suitcases plus bits and pieces in that space.
So the sub-sub-compacts have names like Smart and iQ. Can we look forward to the Honda Genius, the Ford Brilliant, and the Volkswagen Clever Little Bastard?
The Smart name is not meant to imply that the buyer is mentally quick. Rather, it’s an acronym for Swatch Mercedes Art, reflecting the fact that the car was originally developed by watchmaker Swatch AG along with Daimler AG, owner of the Mercedes brand.
I’d buy it.
No, I wouldn’t. All safety standards say that car seats go in the back, so I don’t get the logic that if you get a car with no back seat, that it’s safe to put the car seat in the front. 
Even if the front passenger airbag can be disabled?
Your logic is off. It doesn’t matter if the front passenger side airbag can be disabled. The safest place for a child in a car seat is still in the center back seat. I have never let my daughters ride in the front seat at all even though my oldest is 7. This should be a major consideration for you. Could you live with yourself if your child got killed because of that type of rationalizing?
Even before there were air bags, it was always recommended that children ride in the back seat. I think this is because in most types of crashes, it’s the furthest spot in the car from the impact.
Of course, if you do have to ride with a rearward-facing infant seat in the front, it’s of the utmost importance to disable the airbag. But I personally wouldn’t buy a car where I would be forced to have the child in the front seat, even with the airbag disabled.
Yeah-they’re quite popular here in the more urban parts of San Francisco. The ability to park is well worth the downsides.
No such nomenclature for VW, I’m afraid.
The company has a work-in-progress they have provisionally named the Chico, possibly due out in 2012. (Please note the car shown is not the Chico.) I therefore suggest that VW intends to take the zany comedy route with its sub-compact range by following this model with the Groucho and the Exapno.
Is there really a significant/qualitative difference between front and rear seats, or is it just an “every bit helps” situation? The way you put it, it seems you won’t be able to justify buying anything short of a Hummer. And I suppose you carry your adult passengers in the rear seat too?
Adults can withstand more than small children plus, you can leave the airbags on to protect adults. The very existence of airbags in the front seat should be a big tipoff that there can be some serious danger in the event of some collisions. Cars these days are engineered for crash protection pretty well but there is still a huge amount of mass directly in front of the front seat that can come forward in the event of a severe crash. I take it you have never, ever seen the aftermath of one of those before because almost every other driver has. I don’t drive a Hummer but there is no need to result in hyperbole. It is senseless to take unnecessary risks in cars when it comes to small children and the reasonable precautions any good parent needs to take are about as simple as it gets.
I don’t put my kids in the front seat, but I think putting your kid in a child seat and disabling the air bag is a reasonable precaution. You can take any number of precautions, such as never letting your children outside, but driving in a safe manner with your children strapped in properly seems reasonable, whether they are in the back or front. People get rear ended all the time and the ones closest to that impact are the kids in the back seat.
Actually a Hummer is not a very safe car. Most SUVs are not all that safe due to poor accident avoidance and more roll-overs.
But really, a kid in the back seat is not all that much safer than a kid in the back (assuming proper child seats, proper airbags, etc). And having seen too many Moms drive with constant swiveling around to do something or look at the kid in the back, I am doubtful of any real safety advantage.