Sales of the Smart, the tiny "inner city" motor from DaimlerChrysler,haven't lived up to the hype except in Rome where, Paddy Agnew reports, it's a fashionable hit
At first, and indeed second glance, it's a bizarre scene. Driving around Rome's infamous "Raccordo" ring-road, the unsuspecting, traffic-jammed motorist comes across a sight that, if not for sore eyes, does at least offer a whimsical moment. Just off the six-lane highway is an all-glass, mini-skyscraper filled not with lifts and open-plan offices but rather with multi-coloured real-life little Noddy cars, parked floor above floor and looking for all the world like an ideal Dinky toy collection.
This is the "Smart" hangar, just one of a series of innovative and aggressive marketing moves which have seen the tiny, seemingly sci-fi Smart car prove itself a huge success in and around the Eternal City. So much so that the man largely behind the Roman success story (and the hangar), dealer Sandro Bufacchi, modestly refers to himself as the "world's No.1 Smart" salesman, with annual sales of 7,000 models for a €250 million turnover. Furthermore, Bufacchi expects things to get better, predicting a €150 million increase in turnover over the next three years.
In retrospect, you might be tempted to conclude that the DaimlerChrysler-owned Smart was made for Rome. The Eternal City's legendary traffic congestion, not to mention parking problems in a greater urban centre with over two million registered cars, means the sheer handiness of the Smart was always likely to prove itself a winner.
At two-and-a-half metres long, the Smart (stud book official name is Micro Compact Car smart GmbH) is five feet shorter and a foot narrower than a conventional small car such as the new Volkswagen Beatle.
To some purists, it may look like a highly decorative cross between a beach buggy and a large lawnmower but the fact that you can park three of them, nose to the curb, into a single parellel-parking space means that it has terrific advantages when you are late for an appointment in downtown, "centro storico" Rome of the narrow, cobblestoned streets.
Dealer Bufacchi, however, is a man who closely follows the Roman street-beat. He suspected that people might be tempted to see the Smart as a status symbol rather than just a handy little get-around. He followed up that hunch with a marketing campaign that has included holding car launches in central Rome's elegant Villa Borghese park.
He also hit on the idea of sending his sales team, complete with test-drive car, to wait outside flash city-centre restaurants, ready to offer well-fed and presumably happy punters a trial drive through Roma by night.
It all sounds easy. Yet when the Smart first hit Italian streets three years ago, things did not look quite so cosy. Originally planned in 1994 as a joint-venture between Mercedes and Swiss watch magnate, Swatch, the Smart car did not get off to a terrfic start in 1997 with critics likening it to "driving a telephone booth".
Furthermore, not unlike Mercedes' own A-Series, the first Smarts were plagued with a reputation for being unstable, especially after German papers printed pictures of a Smart that had skidded and ended up with its short snout pointed skwyards. That bad press prompted a re-engineering job and the addition of refinements such as electronic traction and stability control.
A further problem in the accessory-obsessed Italian market came from the original Swatch concept (Swatch eventually dropped out in 1998, leaving the operation wholly-owned by DaimlerChrysler which is estimated to have spent at least $2.5 billion dollars on its development and production, and reportedly does not expect to hit profit margins before 2004).
The original Swatch idea had been for a small, simple, environmentally-friendly car that would either be electrically powered or use some hybrid-type engine, a car to be used by city dwellers for short, local trips and a car stripped of almost all frills.
Early in the car's development, however, an alternative fuel engine was abandoned in favour of petrol and diesel power whilst initial consumer response quickly persuaded the makers that accessories such as radios and air-conditioning (vital in Italy) were essential buyer options.
In one sense, though, the original Smart design was perfectly tuned-in to an Italian market that, in recent years, has become increasingly safety-aware. The car's "safety cell" design, involving crash boxes front and back, a collapsible steering wheel, air-bags and a welded steel frame, all gave it added customer attraction.
Safe, stylish and increasingly trendy, the Smart is also much helped by its low fuel consumption (its three cylinder engine averages 65 miles to the gallon). Not surprisingly, the success story has spread from Rome not just to other big Italian cities such as Milan and Naples, but also to non-urban centres.
By July of this year estimated sales of the Smart car had touched 18,764 and this at a time when the Italian automobile market is in serious decline. (For example, Fiat's share of the European car market fell from 10 per cent to 7.9 per cent in May of this year, as sales dropped by 22.6 per cent). Furthermore, that 18,764 figure has to be set beside global sales figures for 2001 of 116,200 (mainly in western Europe).
At one stage in the late 1990s, it seemed that the Micro Compact Car would be abandoned on the scrapheap of the interesting but unviable. Judged by its Italian success, though, this car could yet live up to its name.