smart fortwo coupe cdi Road Test

Thirty years ago small cars began landing on North American shores and with them an entire new way of looking at automobiles and their manufacturers. Before the gas crisis of the mid-1970s, Detroit's Big Three ruled the domestic roost with ambivalence, flogging mediocre hunks of metal to consumers who didn't know, or expect, any better. Enter the Honda Civic. Once North Americans realized that the Japanese company's compact car, while tiny, 'funny looking' and prone to rust, was a wholly logical vehicle for urban driving, the Big Three lost their edge -- and for many years their direction.