You Know It Makes Sense
by Ross Finlay (09 Jul 04)

Modified for the current model year with the little three-cylinder turbo engine stroked and bored from 599cc to 698cc, higher gearing and improvements to the transmission - which still has the Softouch automatic and Softip sequential manual modes - what was previously marketed as the smart city coupé is now badged in, let's face it, rather over-cute fashion as the fortwo.

Best-seller in the range, the passion model has the engine in its higher 60bhp state of tune, and it's clearly nippier around town and out in the suburbs, even on the open road beyond the 30mph limit. Torque has been boosted too, and the higher final drive ratio makes for an easier cruise.

The Softouch and Softip automatic-clutch transmission has the between-gears hesitations of almost all of its kind, but smart insists that this is the kind of thing its fortwo customers want, especially the ones who spend a lot of time in city traffic and don't want to be pushing a clutch pedal all the time.

We're giving the official fuel consumption figures, later, with the car in the slightly more economical Softip mode. They're higher in Softouch, but in the combined test by only 1.2mpg.

You get a kick-down function in the Softouch mode, and even when using the Softip sequential manual there are clever tricks like the way the transmission won't accept an upward change if the revs are too low, and the unobtrusive way the gears go down to first as the car comes to a halt, with the driver having forgotten to snick down the box. The clutch disengages automatically, and the smart is ready to head off again as soon as the throttle is depressed.

Although not to the same extent as in the roadster and roadster-coupé, and even given the fact that the action of the 2004 transmission has been speeded up, I'd happily swap all of that for a conventional manual change - or, in the fortwo coupé as here, a straightforward Tiptronic.

Well, you can't get either of those; so there's no use moaning, although it's quite heartening that, thanks to its shared componentry with the Mitsubishi Colt, the smart forfour does have a manual-box option. Hmm.

Elsewhere in the technical package, in what's really a rather sophisticated specification, ESP is standard, so is brake assist, and there's hill start assist too.

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