When In Rome . . .
by Alan Douglas (14 Feb 04)

Driving in the streets of Rome is an amazing experience, a true test of stamina and resilience, and not for the faint-hearted. There are no lanes, especially at roundabouts where it is literally everybody for themselves. The weak simply don’t survive, or more commonly are left stranded in a sea of roaring traffic. Virtually every car bears scars of previous encounters, and Rome is undoubtedly the last place on earth you would venture with your pride and joy.

This all goes back to the era of the chariot, of course, where there was no such thing as a highway code and every day was a struggle for survival, either in battle or faced with a fearsome lion in the arena of the Colosseum.

Those same characteristics are needed to venture on the streets, so I was more than a little surprised when some Germans suggested I take one of their latest creations out to see the sights of the Italian capital. But then these are no ordinary Germans . . . they’re the people behind the revolutionary smart, with something of a reputation for being adventurous and challenging convention.

Six years ago, they were viewed differently. Far from being considered smart, most people thought the Germans were just plain daft when they revealed to the world their new car, a two-seater plastic-bodied two-tone machine with removable panels, which made the bubble cars of the sixties look a very sensible proposition.

The smart city coupé was like nothing which had gone before, and it challenged all the established conventions. Who said a car couldn’t look as if it had been shunted from behind by a ten-ton truck? Why couldn’t it have yellow and black body panels with orange seats? What was wrong with a light automatic gearbox which screamed wildly until you got the hang of predicting the change and feathering the throttle? And why did you always have to park the car lengthways in the street?

Making Its Mark

Understandably, it took a little while for us to accept the smart, but accept it we have. In fact, we have taken the smart to our heart. So much so that last year almost 125,000 of them took to the streets of 31 countries around the world. The range has been extended with cabrios, a limited edition of only 2000 cut-down crossblades, and then last year the nippy roadster and roadster coupé.

More . . .

Back to smart Launch index
Back to main Launch index