Here are my top 5 quirky things about my Smart car:
- Makes a good mix master… take one quart of milk, add two scoops ice cream and some fressh strawberries, strap them in to the passenger seat and then go searching for the nearest set of railway tracks or pot-hole filled street. Drive up and down several times and voila!… Strawberry Milkshake. Short wheelbase = rough rides.
- If you have a tall body like me or are over 5’11” then you probably will have the same difficulty I have at stop lights. Unless I tilt my head and scrunch down a bit I can’t see the stop light as the windshield/roofline gets in the way. If the seat was able to drop down an inch or two that would give me the ability to see the street lights.
- There is one wicked blind spot between the side window and rear window of the car. Between the seat headrests and the back pillar there is virtually no way to see a car driving at your back fender on either side. I find myself almost hitting my head on the driver side window while I shoulder check or triple checking the back passenger side (mirror, side mirror, back window/side window) for cars.
- I drove a 1952 International Harvester 1 ton truck that used a floor mounted brake (the pedal pushed down in to the floor) and it felt just like my Smart car’s brakes.
- The “semi-automatic-manual” transmission is one very strange feeling shifter. It reminds me of an old British sports car that I had to double clutch to shift without grinding gears. The pause and lurch between shifts is enough to make a person sea sick. The only way it shifts without the lurching is to use the paddle shifters and shift at much higher RPM’s which is probably terribly hard on that poor little engine.
So there you go… those are my 5 biggest beefs about my little pocket car. What are yours?
