Smart Fortwo

The Smart Fortwo is a rear-engined two-seater city car manufactured by Smart GmbH, introduced at the 1998 Paris Motor Show as the Smart City Coupé, and currently in its second generation. The name refers to its seat capacity. In 2008, Smart debuted an all-electric concept, the Fortwo ed. The Smart features an automated manual transmission without a clutch pedal, six-speed for the first generation, five-speed for the second. Input from floor-mounted shifter or optional steering wheel-mounted paddles controls a servo-operated clutch and sequential automated gearbox. The vehicle may be... driven in automatic mode, though the shift points are not as smooth as in a traditional automatic transmission. In paddle shifter mode, the operator controls the shift points but cannot feather or adjust the speed of the clutch. Thus some skill, and a slight lifting of the accelerator pedal, is required to achieve a smooth shift. From 2009, second generation Fortwos were delivered with improved software that made automatic gear changes both smoother and faster than earlier models.
more