We've had the damn things for a few years already here in Europe.
They are sure practical, with the ForTwo versions able to fit sideways in roadside parking lots, and they eat very little fuel, but that's it for the good points.
The gas models' performance is really bad and the turbodiesel model, while practically running on air, has
no performance to speak of, taking about 20 (twenty!) seconds to get from 0 to 100 km/h (about 60 mi).
The handling is
laughable, they only have two seats and a boot the size of a matchbox.
The manual transmission is actually decent, but the automatic is a nightmare, with awfully long shifting times.
The suspensions do what they can, but with wheels that small you can't help but feel all the irregularities in the road.
Also, the engines don't last long. This isn't much of a problem for the typical european Smart owner, because the things are rarely (if ever) used outside of the city, but it might be a concern to american buyers who have to travel longer distances.
To top it all off, they make a sort of rasping noise that'll leave anyone who's never heard a Smart wondering what the hell's wrong with the engine.
Would I buy one?
Some time ago, I would have laughed at the very idea. I thought that any car with less than 100 horsepower wasn't worthy of being called such.
However, my interests have shifted to the world of two-wheeled vehicles recently, due to both practical reasons and personal enthusiasm.
As a result, I now see cars in a much more utilitarian fashion than I used to: what point is there in owning a sporty car if it'll spend most of its time idling the engine, waiting in line in the horrendous traffic of today's big cities?
(Especially when for significantly less money one can get a motorbike that'll cream all but the fastest supercars on a drag strip?)
So, considering my recent decline of interest in cars, would I buy a smart if I absolutely needed a car (bad weather, extreme cold, whatever)?
After some thought, the answer is "no".
The smart is small and economical, but it isn't sufficiently more so than the next step in the small-car world (a Toyota Yaris/Aygo, a Suzuki Swift, maybe even a BMW Mini if you've got the money and don't hate its retro look as much as I do) to make enduring its many shortcomings worthwhile.
Seriously, how strapped for space do you have to be for a metre or so (rather less in case of the Aygo) to make any difference at all?
