smart car nears - review chicago sun times 12/3

[spdickey]

http://searchchicago.suntimes.com/au...120307.article

Originally Posted by suntimes.com 12/03

The smart fortwo generally is fun to drive, at least in town, where its small size and maneuverability are definite assets.

But there are drawbacks: While lively in town, where many smart cars are expected to be driven, the 0-60 mph time takes a marginal 12.8 seconds, and the 65-75 mph passing speed is mediocre. Top speed is 90 mph. Those actually aren't bad numbers, considering that the fortwo has only a small Mitsubishi 1-liter three-cylinder engine. It works hard during merges and highway passing and is noisy during hard acceleration.

The engine is mounted sideways behind occupants in front of the rear axle. That location puts most weight over the driven wheels for better traction on dry or snowy roads.

Other drawbacks: The clutchless five-speed manual transmission shifts in a jerky manner in both automatic and manual modes. You shift manually using just the gear lever or steering wheel paddles, but there is too much of a lag between shifts. It's easy to slightly miss the Park, Reverse, Neutral and Drive positions when using the transmission in fully automatic mode.

[SmartBob]

Another Noob behind the wheel wants to give an objective view on a transmission he had 10 Minutes to learn. The only jerky thing about the car is the driver.