The car that I normally drive was in the shop for a few days. In its place I was given a Smart car. I could park anywhere with it. The mpg (kilometerage?) was fantastic. I still sat surprisingly high off the road. I hated it. The car was wholly minimalistic. It didn't even show you how many kilometers you had travelled unless the car was off. The car didn't start if it was locked. You couldn't unlock the car from the inside - you had to actually open the door. You couldn't see exactly how much gas you had because there were five little bubbles indicating gas level that were either black (full) or clear (empty), so there was no hand indicating exactly how empty you were. The car was neither automatic nor manual, but a strange mix. You could switch into 'manual' if you wanted, but there was no clutch. However, if you drove in automatic then every time you accelerated enough for the engine to need to move into the next gear, it did so with a hideous lurch that felt as though you were driving manual and it was your second day learning how to change gears. It was susceptible to the slightest breeze on the highway. You had to rotate the volume dial nearly half way around to hear a perceptible difference in the radio, but if the news came on then the radio automatically increased threefold in volume. There was no window defroster. The windshield wipers only had one speed.
I think it's safe to say that I will never own a Smart.
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