The smart suffered from some aerodynamic penalties for being so tall and its short length.

But the smart could also handle crashes muuuuuuch better than the Geos and part of the reason we have had gas mileage losses since the early 90s were that crash structures and air bags have had to keep pace to protect against the oversized SUV threats we face on roads now.

We really should be setting road taxes based on vehicle weight with much higher penalties on heavy cars and trucks. That would incentivize smaller vehicles and we’d all get safer and more efficient at the same time.

I had one of the diesel versions, my best full tank was 82mpg. My Vespa could not even get that mileage.

The original car was garbage. It had a horrible lurching transmission, used dirty diesel, was cheaply built, despite the price and they broke constantly. But you bought one because they were easy to park in European cities.

The original Smart ForTwo used 3.3l/100km or 71 mpg. The gas ones got 46 mpg. None of them got 35mpg.

When you say "larger than a Mini", do you mean the current Mini or the original? Because the current Mini is also substantially larger than the original.