by David Finlay (08 Apr 08)

Like the cars it describes, the little book of smart is small. At £7.99, it's also quite cheap for what you get, which is where the comparison breaks down. But smart has succeeded because its customers love the product regardless of how much it costs, and with that level of enthusiasm they will probably love Paul Jackson's book too.

In 128 pages, nearly all of them containing at least one picture, the book covers the history of the company very well, and is clearly written by someone who is an enthusiast for the brand as well as being very knowledgeable about it. Inevitably and properly, most of the text concerns the city cars, including the heavily revised fortwo which went into production in 2007, plus the wacky cut-down crossblade which made a brief appearance at the turn of the century.

Jackson also looks at the smallest smarts (including a 1:18 scale model by Maisto) and the largest - the incredible forfun2. This monster was created by Greek 4x4 Rally Champion Stefan Attart, who fitted the running gear (including a 5.7-litre diesel engine) of a Unimog into, or rather underneath, a fortwo. The resulting device measured twelve feet from ground to roof, and is rightly described by Jackson as: "The world's most outrageous smart? Probably."

There's also a lot of material on the roadster and roadster-coupé, which did not survive the $1.2 billion recovery plan put into place by smart's then owner DaimlerChrysler, plus a brief reference to the formore SUV, killed well before production started as part of the same emergency measure.

Jackson is brutally honest about the forfour supermini, smart's most conventional product, describing it as "a total failure" as far as the company was concerned. You can see his point when he calls the forfour "one of the few genuinely interesting hatchbacks of the time", but it didn't catch the public imagination in anything like the way the city cars did, and it lasted barely two years.

Perhaps the most astonishing car smart ever made was the forfour Brabus, a searingly quick 177bhp hot hatch, and I was expecting Jackson to give it a page of its own at the very least. But perhaps lack of space, or lack of enthusiasm, took over, since he never mentions it.

That's a strange omission, but as far as I can see it's the only one in the book. In all other respects Jackson has done a fine job, and I would be surprised to meet any smart owner who did not have his work placed prominently on their bookshelves.

the little book of smart, by Paul Jackson, is published by Veloce at £7.99. ISBN 978 1 84584 148 5. More details at www.veloce.co.uk.

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