Mercedes' New Smart Convertible Engineered For Tight Turns Is Smaller Than A Couch

Smart, the mini car brand owned by Mercedes-Benz , sent a squad of automotive journalists on a scavenger hunt through Valencia in the new cabrio version of the Smart fortwo roadster to see what it can do. 

An hour into the hunt, our rear-wheel drive, three-cylinder turbocharged companion proved adept at making tight turns, darting through congested city streets and, of course, being cute.

But the Smart fortwo, which is shorter than my living room couch, turned out to be our best asset in this low-speed chase (it was siesta time, after all) through Spain’s third-largest city. 

No other car could execute successive hairpin turns through narrow, Old World alleys as we raced our enemies (ahem, colleagues) to the next checkpoint.

“Now we test the turning circle on this,” my partner for the hunt said as we squeezed through an impossibly tight turn in search of another gothic monument.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the question “How small is the turning circle of all current Smart fortwo models?” counted among our scavenger hunt tasks. I googled the answer as my drive partner whipped the car down a corner to find the street art that would help us answer questions 4, 5 and 6. Google GOOGL +1.45%’s response: an improbably small 22.8 feet or, because we are in Spain, 6.95 meters.

Smart, which continues to grow by double-digits in Europe and will enter China later this year, has attained cult-status in some global markets for its cheerful body and ability to squeeze into any parking spot. The cabrio version is among the top five registered convertibles in Germany.

Its status in the U.S., where Smart will launch the fortwo cabrio this summer as a 2017 model, is less certain. The company hasn’t revealed pricing for the new car but said it’s committed to making it the most affordable convertible on the market.