Junkyard Gem: 2008 Smart Fortwo Passion

Even as American drivers tended to choose increasingly massive trucks for their daily commutes, Daimler AG decided that money could be made selling a microscopic two-seater with a 73-1/2″ wheelbase here. Sales never met Stuttgart’s expectations, but sufficient Smart Fortwos were sold to Americans that used-up examples show up occasionally in the car graveyards I frequent. Today’s Junkyard Gem is one of the Fortwos sold here during its optimistic first model year, found in a boneyard in Tulsa, Oklahoma last month.

Many European cities allow perpendicular parking on streets for vehicles as short as the Fortwo, which meant that drivers could squeeze two Fortwos into a space that would fit just a single parallel-parked ordinary car. For the most part, this parking method couldn’t be done legally in the United States, negating the Smart’s primary practicality advantage.

Fuel economy wasn’t great for such a tiny machine: 33 mph city, 40 mpg highway, worse than the gas mileage of both the 2008 Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid. Still, fuel prices spiked hard in 2008, with average per-gallon cost of gasoline hitting $4.11 in July of that year (about $5.91 in 2023 dollars), and the Fortwo’s decent fuel economy must have helped sales.

The curb weight of the ’08 Fortwo was just a bit over 1,800 pounds, or about the same as a mid-1980s Honda Civic. In fact, this car’s 70 horsepower falls neatly between the 60 horses of the 1985 Honda Civic 1300 and the 76 horses of the 1985 Honda Civic 1500.

This car was optimized for one trait, at which it excelled: short overall length. It’s even shorter than Japan’s kei specifications (its width is too great to allow it to be registered as a kei car in Japan, though Smart eventually made a narrowed Japanese-market version). As the owner and daily driver of a genuine kei van (which gets 60 mpg in town and seats four), the only thing I envy about the Fortwo is its superior highway-speed capability. That’s the advantage of a mighty 999cc Mitsubishi three-cylinder over a kei-compliant 658cc Subaru four-cylinder.

This is the Passion trim level, which came with air conditioning and this sunroof. The MSRP was $13,590, or about $19,531 in 2023 dollars.

It appears that the driver’s airbag deployed at some point and was then taped up. That crash damage may have been what doomed this car.

After taking a shot at selling electric Fortwos here, Smart gave up on the US-market Fortwo after 2019. You can still buy new third-generation Fortwos in Europe (though the Ligier JS looks a lot sportier).

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