Smart: Small Car, Big Deal

The book is amazing it goes into such find detail about the design concepts and the reality of building the smart car and may I say the book was really a pleasure to read. It has so many details to provide a great learning tool about the vehicle smart car.

I've just finished reading four books on the smart car and this is by far the best. It begins in the beginning, with early sketches and competing designs. Then the company politics and marketing approaches are covered, along with reactions to poor sales and plans for the future. Unfortunately, since it was written in 2008 the book ends with photos of the new 451 model. A lot has happened since then. I found this book refreshingly free of the marketing jibberish that fills press releases and some other smart books. The last chapter is particularly prescient with this line: "Those who have neglected to add global warning to their agenda will face difficult times in the future." There is also a nice retrospective about how it was too bad the original car could not have been an EV or a hybrid as Nicolas Hayek dreamed, but the costs of going that route might have ended the whole smart car adventure prematurely! Lots of pictures, lots of photos, even of early prototypes, lots of design sketches. Just a great book.

Great book with a lot of obscure smart history.

I've been customizing our Smart Car. This book is good quality, provides a thorough history, and is well written and interesting in a way that makes me want to read it to the end. For example, did you know that the engine is made by Mitsubishi?

I recently purchased a model 450 Smart Car in the USA. This is one of the European models that have not been imported officially but I did get one and wanted a book that tells me the history of the development of my car. This book does that and even goes a little into the newer model 451 that began importing to the USA in 2008. For what I wanted, this book was perfect. Now if I could only find one of those British books that seemed to exist for almost all car models 30 years ago that showed how to take the car apart and fix it. I don't think a book like that exists for the Smart Car. Yet.

I was thinking about buying a small car. Later I decided to buy a small electric car. But I also discovered those smart electric cars are of very poor car and bought instead a fiat 500e.

After seeing my first Smart Fortwo in Berlin, Germany in 1998, I waited ten years to get one in April of this year. What a great car. However information about the car has been sketchy at best over the years and this book fills in the gaps and answers questions that a potential owner might have or for that fact, one who owns a Smart Fortwo now. In particular is the description of the assembly plant in France and the explanation of why Mercedes dealers in Germany prior to 2006 would not even talk to you about a Smart car. Read the book to find out. This little car does exactly what it is designed to do. Micro City Car (MMC). Great in traffic and terrific mileage. Also it has the lowest CO2 emissions for a gasoline engine car in the USA.

Very nice book and very interesting. if you are curious about smart cars, this book will definitely bring some lights about the philosophy and history of the concept.

メーカー資料を基にした内容で、他の本と大同小異だが、２代目の記事が多く入っているのは、良い。 ３代目が登場した現在、それをおさえた改訂版の発行を望む。

Very disappointed in this book as I have read 'smart thinking' by Tony Lewin and that is a far better book for anyone wanting to know the history of how this tiny car came to be. This book reads more like an elaborate advertisement for the smart car than a factual account of the car's development. The section that covers the 2008 to current smart is very lacking in any information. Most of the book is filled with glossy pretty colour photos with very little substance.

excellent

a coffee tablebook, giving the thoughts and ideas, behind the smart car, I had the thought on reading this book, that it was more of an advertisment, for smart car rather than a look at the car itself, also several years old.