09 Jul 07
The official line used to be that the Smart was a stylish premium city car, and the fact that it did minimal harm to the environment was a happy coincidence, a spin-off from its small size and light weight.
Well, forget all that. The new version of the Smart Fortwo will be getting not one, not two but eventually three green versions. And it's not as if the regular version is exactly a fume-belching monster. The basic 61bhp version does 60.1mpg and emits just 112g/km of CO2.
Coming in the next few months - initially in left-hand drive, but with right-hand drive to follow - there's the Fortwo mhd, which stands for Micro Hybrid Drive. That's extremely misleading as it's not a hybrid in the Toyota Prius or Honda Civic IMA sense. Rather, it's fitted with a stop-start system that cuts the engine when it's not needed.
Also due early next year is the diesel version that's already available elsewhere in Europe: we'll definitely get it in left-hand drive and right-hookers are likely. And Smart is about to begin a trial in London involving 100 electric-powered Fortwos. It won't commit itself to a production version just yet, but something would need to be pretty wrong with the prototype for it not to go ahead.
