2014 Smart Fortwo on 2040-cars

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2017 Smart Fortwo Cabrio is the cheapest convertible you can buy

When it arrives at dealers this fall, the 2017 Smart Fortwo Cabrio will be the least expensive convertible on the market. When equipped with a manual transmission, the new Cabrio starts at $18,900, making it the only convertible available for under $20,000 dollars. Its closest competitor, the Fiat 500c, starts at $20,395. Opting for the six-speed dual-clutch transmission bumps the price of the Fortwo up to $19,890. An all-new Smart Fortwo was released for 2016, but the Cabrio went on hiatus. The new Fortwo comes equipped with a 1.0-liter turbocharged three-cylinder pumping out 89 hp and an even 100 lb-ft of torque. All that power moves the tiny two-seater to 60 mph in 10.4 seconds. While it may not be quick, it is customizable. The new Cabrio is available in a variety of colors, including the choice of a red or black soft top. The Smart Fortwo Cabrio's small footprint and two seats limit its appeal, but it does offer affordable top-down driving in a compact, easy to maneuver package. The current Smart Fortwo is leagues better than the car it replaced. We expect the new Cabrio model to be much the same. Featured video:

2016 Smart Fortwo

In the sixteen years since Daimler first introduced the Smart car, the micro city car market has grown significantly to the extent that the urban-oriented brand doesn't just have more competition to contend with these days than it did in the late 90s; for the first time it has real competition on its hands altogether. In other words, while the Smart Fortwo once had the micro city car market almost entirely to itself, new rivals have emerged to challenge its dominance.
It may be a long time, if ever, before slightly larger contenders like the Scion iQ and Volkswagen Up! catch up to the 1.6-million units Smart has moved since it first hit the market back in 1998, somehow never managing to turn a profit along the way. But the bottom line is that Smart's position in the market is far from assured, especially relying, as it has, on the same architecture for over a decade and a half.
So after strongly hinting at the way forward with a series of show cars, Daimler revealed the all-new Smart Fortwo and its bigger brother, the Forfour, in July ahead of its debut at last month's Paris Motor Show. With both the brand's future and its supremacy in the urban mobility market hanging in the balance, we boarded a flight to Barcelona to see what Daimler had up its short sleeve. What we found was a two-seat city car that's not just a substantial improvement over the model it replaces, but an altogether different beast- one which doesn't aspire to be everything to everyone, but just might be what drivers in the world's densest urban cores will need... and little more.

This guy sold his Camaro to buy a Smart EV, and loves it

The Dead Milkmen will be very displeased. Stephen Grinwis has decided to explain to Clean Technica why he sold his Chevrolet Camaro for – get this – a Smart ED electric vehicle. We can already hear the Milkmen, performers of the 1985 punk masterpiece Bitchin' Camaro, crying in their Stoney's Extra Stout. But green is green, and this case, the man said he was going broke driving the Camaro by spending $550 a month on gas and shredding his $3,000 set of tires. His Smart ED costs him about $20 a month worth of electricity, and the maintenance costs are way lower. Grinwis also claims the Smart ED is more fun because he can floor it off the line without garnering any police attention. He also says lots of folks ask him about the car, perhaps because he's always zipping a full speed. He boasts of having an eco-driving rate in the ED of under 20 percent, making us wonder if his single-charge range is about the length of a driveway. Grinwis is somewhat of a rare breed, in that just 1,390 Smart EDs were sold in the US through July (Smart, a division of Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler, still hasn't submitted its August numbers to AutoblogGreen). Through August, General Motors sold about 65,000 Camaros. And they're still bitchin'.