Pick-A-Day

May 2005
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Smart!

This morning, while my sister slept in, I got up and headed to Erfurt, where a friend drove me out to the Erfurt Airport. Unlike my usual trips to an airport, this trip included neither obtaining a boarding pass nor meeting a relative.

I was renting a car from Sixti.

A Smart Car for two.

For 16,50€/per day, including all possible insurances and 100km/day, the Smart Car is transportation for my sister and me tomorrow when we visit Oberhof, a reportedly picturesque town in the Thüringien Forest south of Weimar.

The car is incredibly cute, and comes complete with an enormous sticker on its side announcing the fact that one can rent it for 5€ per day (excluding insurance and the like). It also comes with an interesting transmission. It is both Automatic and Manual at the same time. I press a button and it works like an automatic-that is to say it picks the wrong gear at the most inconvenient time thus leaving you lurching in traffic. On the other hand, the manual transmission is unlike any I’ve ever seen before: there is no clutch, rather you press the stick forward and it increases a gear, or down and it decreases a gear.

I haven’t really explored the manual transmission yet, as I had to hurry back from Erfurt and I didn’t want to get used to this clutch-less manual transmission in traffic, which there was plenty of on the road. I went 27 kilometers from the Erfurt Airport back to the street where I live. It would have been 24, but I managed to stop paying attention to the signs about a kilometer from town and followed the wrong road into town, costing me a short distance.

The car has a huge sun roof-in fact, the roof is tempered glass, with a small sliding thing that can be pushed back or forward to block unwanted light, but only in a small sliver.

On the other hand, since it’s a smart car, there’s not a whole lot of space.

There’s a tiny, tiny trunk behind the two seats, which doesn’t hold very much at all. Pockets in both of the doors, and a little space behind the seats in the car, depending how far back you have the seats placed.

On the other hand, for the two passengers, it is surprisingly roomy. I had no problem fitting into the car, and in fact, I had to move the seat forward in order to feel like I had adequate reach for the gas and brake pedal. I kept expect a clutch, and the lack of the clutch is probably why I wasn’t comfortable using the manual transmission.

(Basically, I think the manual transmission is a way for you to signal the automatic transmission what gear you want to be in rather than letting the transmission make the decision for you. As somebody who is used to the clutch, this is a bit disconcerting for the foot. And yes, for the Germans reading this, I am a manual transmission kind of guy, which means I am a weird American. I hate automatics even though I am defaulting to automatic on the Smart Car.)

At my sister’s insistence, we headed out in the car for a short drive this evening.

She had sat in a Smart Car before, but had never ridden in one before.

We drove the short distance over to the local Aldi, where we bought quite a few groceries, mostly for me since she’s not here too long, and then headed back home. Total, three kilometers, including getting slightly lost looking for an easier way to make a turn, before I discovered that a street is one-way for cars. It works two-ways for pedestrians and I have been nothing but a pedestrian in Weimar for quite awhile now, so my surprise was understandable, I hope.

I’ve now driven a total of 30 kilometers in the Smart Car, and I still adore it.

Hopefully I’ll feel that way tomorrow after driving it on the Autobahn.

Photos will be posted Friday.

4 comments to Smart!

  • ChrisC

    Why am I getting visions of that episode of, “Absolutely Fabulous” where Patsy and Edina got picked up to go to the office by their chauffer and he picked them up in a SmartCar?

  • I haven’t seen that episode, but that would be beautiful. Did they sit on each other’s laps, or did one sit in the trunk?

  • Annie

    This tiny trunk has enough space for one crate of beer. That’s enough for the average German.

  • ChrisC

    It appeared to be more like the Smarts I saw in London when I was there with you. 4-Person… but I don’t think it looked much like the Smart-4. An earlier version of the Smart perhaps?

    Patsy was in the back seat basically folded into every position possible. I don’t remember which season of AbFab it was in though. It reminded me alot of riding in the compartment behind the back seat of my dad’s VW Beatle when I was a kid.