smart fortwo limited three Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: smart fortwo limited three
Prices: £9,950-£11,900 – on the road INSURANCE GROUPS: 3-6
Emissions: 103-105g/km
Performance: [cabrio] 0-60mph 13.3s / Max Speed 90mph
Fuel Consumption: [cabrio] (urban) 55.4mpg / (extra urban) 70.6mpg / (combined) 64.2mpg
Safety: Twin front airbags, ABS, recessed wipers, ESP
Dimensions: Length/Width/Height 2695/1559/1542mm

BORN THREE

Our Rating: 6.9 / 10

Funky design is all part of the smart fortwo’s appeal. In limited three guise, it gets a colour scheme to match. Steve Walker reports.

Melon Green paintwork and a chocolate brown interior; it’s not a colour combination that springs to many car buyers’ minds when they’re specifying their new model. On some vehicles, it would look faintly ridiculous, dealing a fatal blow to the resale value, but others are seemingly built to carry off this kind of gaudy pallet, the smart fortwo being a prime example. The fortwo limited three is a special edition smart that’s offered exclusively in Melon Green so at the very least, it’ll stand out from the crowd.

Standing out is what the smart does best and that’s a credit to its designers because it remains one of the most diminutive four-wheeled vehicles on our roads. These days there are a number of rival city cars trying to muscle in on the fortwo’s territory at the more fashion-conscious end of the market but being the original still counts for something and the smart is battling hard to maintain its market share.

The original smart wasn’t the finest driver’s car. Its jolting ride and what was arguably the most obstreperous gearbox on the market ensured that it was a chore as soon as you ventured beyond its native inner-city environment. Today’s model is significantly better. It’s 19.5cm longer from nose to tail but crucially, it’s 5cm longer in the wheelbase with a wider track and wider tyres. It’s comfortable on the open road, cornering with some composure and with less of the worrying body roll that can afflict narrow, high-sided vehicles. There are better handling city cars but the fortwo has definite benefits in terms of manoeuvrability, and ease of use around town. The optional power steering lacks feel and I’d settle for the unassisted helm if you can put up with the extra effort needed to execute low speed manoeuvres.

With the roof up, the cabrio model is barely any noisier at cruising speeds than the hard-topped coupe with just an extra rustle of wind noise reminding you you’re in the convertible. The 1.0-litre petrol engine smart offers with the limited three special edition is refined but can be found wanting at higher speeds. It’s fine for pottering about town and has the benefit of the clever mhd (micro hybrid drive) system that cuts the engine at traffic lights or in the urban crawl to save fuel.

smart have done away with the sequential gearbox in the old car, swapping its jerky six-gear set-up for a faster shifting, five-speed unit. The standard manual shift option gives decent control, letting you prod the lever to select gears yourself or flip the optional steering wheel paddles. Lift off the gas as you do this and it manages quite nicely but the softouch fully-automatic mode on the up-spec models is preferable most of the time.

The smart fortwo is famous for its extrovert colour schemes and by those standards the limited three probably isn’t too over the top, at least not for smart’s target customers. The exterior is a mixture of Melon Green metallic paint on the body panels and silver on the safety cell. With six-spoke alloy wheels and ‘limited three’ logos, it should draw plenty of attention to itself. Inside, the instruments and door trims are in a dark brown leather-effect finish while the three-spoke steering wheel and gearshift are also in brown leather. The instruments are picked out in silver and the brown seat upholstery has a fetching tripped design.

It’s hard to argue with the suitability of the fortwo concept for its urban transport role. With two seats, tiny dimensions, that self-shifting gearbox and fuel-sipping engines, it makes all kinds of sense for all kinds of reasons. The fortwo cabrio seems less sensible, exposing its occupants to the noise and smog of the city but it’s more extrovert, more stylish and more fun and these attributes are just as