You know when you really want to like something and you try really hard but for some reason you just can’t? Well, that is how I felt about the Smart ForFour.
We were sent a Smart ForFour to use for one week.
Some days I drove it and other days Gaming Daddy of Two drove it and surprisingly we both have very different opinions on it. I suppose it comes down to what we were using the car for.
Before I get into too much detail I think I should show you some pictures of the car to let you see how it looks.
Designed with the apple generation in mind the shiny white interior annoyed me straight away and who really needs all these fancy gadgets just to drive a car? Take the four switches to the right of the steering wheel. Now I understand parking camera being useful but a lane keeping assist sensor which beeps when you move into another lane just screams bad driver to me. Do people really not know when they are drifting into another lane? The same goes for the forward collision warning.
It doesn’t end there, the car comes equipped with cruise control and a speed limiter both things that Gaming Daddy of Two loved and I just found frivolous and unnecessary.
When I was approached about reviewing the car it was this sentence in the press release that had me interested “Don’t be fooled by that compact exterior, the smart forfour has plenty of room inside for a family of four, making it ideal for the daily school run or family weekend trip away. With 975 litres of cargo space and, once the rear seats are folded, an even more spacious and clever load area, there’s heaps of room for all those shopping bags, bikes and buggies of everyday family life. ” Now with the school run I can definitely see this being the perfect car and it really can fit four people comfortably within the inside but a camping trip? Not a chance! The boot was tiny, how they managed to fit a bike or a buggy in there with the four seats up I have no idea. Fold the two back seats down and you are in business but then where would the family fit? Now the rear seats do have a cargo position which means the boot space is increased but even then I would struggle to go away overnight as a family of four and that would be without having to pack the tent and everything else we would need for camping.
Now as you can read I am not overly impressed with this car as a family car but I can certainly see that it does have some uses. When I stopped thinking about using it for holidays or large shopping trips it started to make more sense. Parking it in a busy car in the city centre was easy and it drove like a dream on the motorway. I can see this being a great second car for a busy family, one that my hubby would be happy to drive. However where I see this car really coming into its own is with the younger drivers. Early twenties, with no kids, who want a decent car with all the latest gadgets but one that is big enough to fit in their mates. The Smart ForFour is priced from £11,265 OTR so it is a really good price for a small car with these gadgets but I still can’t see its uses as the main family car, well not for our family anyway.
