Here’s Why Nobody Bought The Smallest Modern Cars Sold In America

It’s no secret that America is enchanted with large things. We love big trucks, wide roads, and burgers that can be measured in pounds. It’s a sharp contrast to what goes on in much of the rest of the world, where bigger isn’t always better. America got a taste of the rest of the world in the 2000s and 2010s when a wave of small cars washed up on our shores. The smallest of the small were the Smart Fortwo, the smallest modern mass-production car sold in America, and the Scion iQ, the car that claimed to be the smallest four-seater in the entire world. Both of these cars promised thrifty fuel economy, easy parking, and affordable prices, but nobody bought them. I’ve compared these cars against each other and now it’s clear why these were failures in America.

Some of you might be confused by this piece. My wife has owned her 2012 Scion iQ for a year now while I have recently added a sixth Smart to my fleet. I’ve had a long time to compare these cars, but for some reason I haven’t. I’ve been waiting for years to do this comparison. When the Scion iQ went on sale during the 2012 model year, its direct competition was the second-generation Smart Fortwo. I have three second-generation Fortwos in my fleet, but the first two are high-mileage examples where their best years are long behind them. I didn’t think it would have been fair to compare a low-mile iQ against a beat-up Smart.

However, now I have a clean Smart, allowing my dream comparison to commence. Unfortunately, what I discovered was not as I expected.

Cheaper Frugal Transportation

The Smart Fortwo and the Scion iQ were members of a wave of small cars that hit America right when extreme downsizing was trendy.

The Fortwo made its official launch in the United States in 2008 just as many Americans were hurting from the kickoff of the Great Recession and right on time for gas prices to spike. The timing of Smart USA couldn’t have been better. The Fortwo almost seemed like the second coming of the Geo Metro. It was an inexpensive car promising inexpensive running costs for an uncertain future. Plus, it also just looked as cute as a button.

The Scion iQ came later, landing in 2011 for the 2012 model year. America was still rebuilding and small cars were still popular. The Toyota promised to be what the Smart wasn’t. It was nearly as small, but it was designed to be mightier than a Smart in every way.

At the time, these two cars claimed to be the smallest of their kind. The Smart Fortwo beat the Mini Cooper at being the smallest mass-produced car sold in America. While the Scion iQ couldn’t make that claim, Toyota boasted about how no other four-seater sold in the world was smaller.

These cars were joined by a long list of other diminutive rides including the Chevrolet Aveo, the Suzuki SX4, the Honda Fit, the Toyota Yaris, the Ford Fiesta, the Fiat 500, the Honda CR-Z, the Mini Coupe, the Nissan Versa, the Mitsubishi Mirage, and I’m sure there are others that I’m missing. America wasn’t just going small with its cars, either, as work vehicles also downsized with a flood of tiny vans like the Ford Transit Connect, Ram ProMaster City, Nissan NV200, and the Chevy City Express.

Sadly, the vast majority of these cars are gone from the U.S. market. Somehow the Mitsubishi Mirage held on when brands like Honda and Toyota waved the white flag, but even the Mirage is disappearing from America soon. What’s left? The Nissan Versa, which isn’t that small anymore, the Fiat 500e, and the Mini Cooper, which also isn’t that small anymore.

All of these cars offered Americans a cheaper way to travel, but the Scion iQ and the Smart Fortwo took the small car idea to the extreme. These cars weren’t just tiny, but they were designed to be supercars for the city. Smarts are so short they could park perpendicular in a parallel space while the iQ needs just 26.4 feet to complete a turning circle. Both are designed to be able to snipe up the impossibly small parking spaces that even a Honda Fit cannot squeeze into.

Yet, both of these cars were sales failures. The iQ especially took a beating on the market. There are about 15,700 Scion iQs in America against about 98,000 Smart Fortwos. My wife and I love the unloved, so it’s only fitting we have examples of both of these cars. Now, a full decade later than a comparison like this would really matter, I finally got to test both cars side-by-side.

Similar, Yet Different

Let’s start with the basics.

The Smart Fortwo measures 8.8 feet long and 5.1 feet wide. Meanwhile, the Scion iQ sits at 5.5 feet wide and runs 10 feet long. This makes the cars very similar in size, but their layouts couldn’t be any different.

A Smart Fortwo is designed around providing maximum space to just two occupants. It achieves this using a rear engine and rear-wheel drive layout with the drivetrain stuffed behind the seats.

The Scion iQ places its engine up front and it drives the front wheels. However, Toyota went through some incredible development work to fit four seats in a space only a foot longer than a Smart. Click here to read my retrospective, but I’ll give you a short version. Toyota’s engineers moved the differential to the front of the engine, designed a steering system that’s more compact than usual, invented a substantially smaller air-conditioner pack, hid the fuel tank under the cabin floor, slimmed down the seats, staggered the seat rails, and even deleted the glove compartment. Yep, you have to store things in a flimsy tray under the front passenger seat.

Smart’s engineers also put in a ton of clever work behind the scenes. A Fortwo is built around a tough safety cage that’s supposed to activate the crumple zones of the car you hit since the Smart doesn’t have big crumple zones of its own. Every part of the car is supposed to sacrifice itself in a crash. Even the wheels are designed to absorb crash energy in an effort to reduce the impact to the occupants.

Both cars have a suite of airbags with the Smart boasting six airbags to cocoon the vehicle’s occupants. The Scion iQ goes even further with its 11 airbags, including what Toyota called the world’s first rear window airbag. That’s because the rear seat occupants of an iQ have their heads only a few inches from the rear glass.

Both cars earned four stars in crash testing with the Smart getting particularly high marks for having the strongest roof of any city car sold in America. In IIHS testing, the Smart’s roof took on 5.4 times the car’s weight. That’s 9,720 pounds!

Things start departing again when you look at the routes both manufacturers took. The Scion iQ has a conventional metal body whereas the Smart covers its safety cell in plastic panels. The Scion iQ has a 1.3-liter four-cylinder making 94 HP and 84 lb-ft of torque, while the Smart Fortwo has a 999cc three making 70 HP and 68 lb-ft of torque.

In terms of price, a 2012 Smart Fortwo had a starting price of $12,490 for a base Pure, $14,690 for the more luxurious Passion, and $17,690 for the Cabriolet. A 2012 Scion iQ was $15,265 and didn’t have trim levels. Instead, you picked options à la carte.

Performance

Neither of these cars is going to win in a race. Depending on who is behind the wheel, a Scion iQ can hit 60 mph in around 10 or 11 seconds. A Smart Fortwo on a good day can do it in around 12 seconds, but I’ve seen acceleration times as slow as 14 seconds.

Fuel economy is similar, too, as the EPA said an iQ will get up to 37 mpg while the Smart can do up to 41 mpg. In the real world, I get about 42 mpg with the Smart and about 37 mpg with the iQ. However, the iQ technically wins out because it drinks regular gasoline while the Smart wants premium.

The iQ outruns a Fortwo. It’s limited to 103 mph as opposed to the Smart’s limited 90 mph and its turning circle is even two feet sharper than a Smart. The 2,127-pound Scion iQ also weighs about 300 pounds heavier than a Smart, but you don’t really seem to feel the extra weight.

I’d say both cars lose when it comes to their transmissions. A Smart Fortwo of the era had a five-speed automated manual transmission that pretty much everyone hated. Meanwhile, the Scion iQ has a CVT and it isn’t something to get excited about, either. A lot of the time it leaves the car revving high and sounding like a blender. That said, of the two, I do prefer the Smart’s transmission as you can at least pretend to be a racing driver as you crawl to 60 mph.

Handling isn’t going to blow you away, either. Smarts are designed to understeer at the first sign of trouble. That’s baked in to reduce the risk of rolling over. The Scion iQ also plows wide when you get a little too frisky behind the wheel. In my experience, the handling of both cars is rectified by getting wider tires. I’ve driven Smarts over 200,000 miles and am happy to say that wider tires aren’t going to make you roll over.

The wider tires are also good for highway stability. The Scion iQ has razor sharp steering, but that can lead to a twitchy feeling on the highway. Meanwhile, the Smart gets blown around in high winds. In my experience, wider tires fix both problems.

The cars also differ in ride quality. Both cars have MacPherson struts up front, but the tuning varies. The front suspension of a Smart is hard and harsh, while the Scion is softer. Things get interesting in the rear, where a Smart has a De Dion tube suspension and the iQ has a torsion beam.

I think the Smart’s De Dion wins in the rear because it’s actually quite soft.

However, the iQ is overall a more comfortable car that’s less prone to shaking out your fillings, especially if you run tires with healthy sidewall. Every bump is less violent. The iQ’s standard 16-inch wheels also seem to handle monster potholes better than a Smart’s 15-inch alloys.

With that said, neither car really feels like a normal car when things get rough. Keep in mind that these cars have short wheelbases, limited suspension travel, paper-thin stock tires, and weigh as light as a feather. You will get tossed around on rough roads in either car.

Still, at the end of the day, the iQ does edge out the Smart on handling. It’s a little wider, a little longer, and its wheels are pushed out a little further into the corners than the Smart. Yet, the iQ sort of just drives like any other front-wheel-drive car while the Smart feels like a glorified golf cart or go-kart.

Interior

Both of these cars have vastly different approaches to their interiors.

A Smart goes for an upscale experience with a fabric-covered dashboard, available heated leather seats, and nifty design patterns. The cabin is also made airy with either a full panoramic polycarbonate roof or the ability to go topless with the convertible. Of course, Smarts also love being weird, so your instrumentation is housed in prominent pods and the interior tries to look like modern art.

The features also match this upscale mission as buyers were able to get their Smarts with alarm systems, fog lights, automatic wipers, automatic headlights, paddle shifters, cruise control, and a surround sound system with a subwoofer and navigation screen.

The iQ feels like a Toyota product from the early 2010s. That means hard plastics, easily scratched piano black plastics, and cloth seats that would feel at home in a city bus. The iQ, at least the American market version, is more of an economy car. You cannot get heated seats and you cannot get leather. The American market model also didn’t have cruise control as an option. You can also forget about the automatic convenience options. However, Scion did offer cool wheels and a jammin’ Pioneer sound system with more speakers and better sound clarity than what Smart offered.

Ergonomics are imperfect in both cars. Smart’s seats are sporty, but not so comfortable if you’re a wider person. Scion’s seats have less bolstering than a park bench but feel good on a road trip. Smart’s steering wheels don’t adjust and both cars offer only the most basic seat adjustment in the form of position and seatback control. Neither car will be the most fitting vehicle you’ve driven.

What’s a little odd is that Toyota did offer more upscale interiors in other markets. Sadly, Americans were stuck with interiors not unlike a Corolla of the day.

I’ll also note that the iQ does make better use of its interior. Occupants have better shoulder room than they would in a Smart and the rear right seat is legitimately spacious enough for an adult. The same could not be said for the rear left seat, which cannot fit a full-size adult unless the driver is a short person. But if there are just two of you, it feels like a normal car!

The iQ also has a bit of a strange solution to storage. When the rear seats are up there isn’t anywhere to put cargo. However, fold the rear seats down and you have about the normal amount of cargo space you’d expect from a hatchback of larger size. So, the iQ is great for couples.

Of the two, I think the Smart has a better interior design and the seats are better for spirited driving. However, the iQ’s interior feels better at long journeys. Just make sure you get an aftermarket cruise control like my wife did.

Reliability And Quality

This next one is going to be an interesting one.

In my experience, Smarts can be reliable cars, but they can be total disasters when they aren’t. They also have known issues that impact a huge number of cars. For example, all versions of the Smart Fortwo sold in America had a roof that hasn’t aged well. The polyurethane roofs of the base model Pures are known for delaminating. The polycarbonate roofs of the Passion Coupes are known for internal cracking and peeling. And the convertible tops of the Cabriolets are known for shrinking, leaking, and eventual total failure.

Meanwhile, the iQ has a plain steel roof, one that’s unlikely to ever give you any trouble.

The problems with Smarts continue as some of the all-aluminum Mitsubishi engines that power them have died to burned valves. Others have warped their heads after sudden coolant loss events. Sadly, the range between overheating and engine damage is very narrow. In my experience, if you’re seeing an overheating light in your Smart, you probably already have head damage.

Then you get to the transmission, which will sometimes kill its clutch actuator or you’ll encounter an internal fault which leaves the car trapped in Park. Other issues include peeling paint on red, yellow, and blue cars, front springs that snap over time, rear crash bars that rust out, and known parasitic battery drain. Over time, the plastic panels can also get brittle. This can be bad as it can lead to the vehicle’s “hood” flying off once the plastic latches degrade enough.

For the most part, Scion iQs appear to be a bit more sturdy. I’ve seen issues like a CVT whine, paint fade, and cold start engine rattles, but that’s the most serious of it.

It also appears that the Scion iQ is far more prone to rusting than a Smart. Sheryl’s iQ now has a rust spot on the passenger door and the front subframe is looking pretty scaly.

Toyota didn’t even attempt to protect the rockers from damage, either, as there are no liners in the rear. Our iQ’s rockers get filled with dirt and road salt in the winter.

There are also other things I don’t like about the iQ. Its door seals trap far too much dirt and road salt, which causes corrosion. Scion also forgot to give you a center console or center armrests, so your arms sort of just flop around. Its dome light is honestly the worst interior light I have seen in any car made in the past 30 years.

Seriously, the dome light is a tiny LED spotlight that shines light on a highly focused area. If you lose something in your Scion iQ at night you just aren’t going to find it until daylight. The epic packaging prowess of the iQ also makes maintenance and repairs a little harder. You could refresh most of a Smart’s engine bay in a few hours of time, but the iQ makes you dig through parts just to get to the spark plugs through the tiny hood.

But the drivetrain has been impressive in how much it has worked without a single flaw. I can’t say that about any of my six Smarts.

At any rate, I regularly see both Scion iQs and Smart Fortwos with well more than 150,000 miles. I’ve also seen some Smarts and iQs with over 250,000 miles. So both cars can take a serious beating for a while. Sheryl has put nearly 40,000 miles on her iQ in the year she’s had it and it doesn’t show signs of stopping yet.

Both Are Great Failures

So, now it’s time to answer my question. Why did these cars fail?

I think the answer is different for both cars. I was around when Smart launched in America and many prospective buyers were disappointed that the Fortwo was not the second coming of the Geo Metro. It didn’t get the fuel economy you’d expect from a car of this size. Smart had a super thrifty diesel engine that gets a legitimate 70 mpg, but the company felt that Americans were willing to trade fuel economy for more speed.

Then there’s the fact that you were getting a tiny city car that, when well equipped, was around $16,000. When Smart came to America, Nissan Versas could be had brand new for $10,000. So, Smart was asking buyers to spend more money to get less car. Ultimately, I think what doomed Smart USA was the fact that it focused on selling the Fortwo to city dwellers when people were really looking for a cheap economy car. Once the city folk got their Smarts, sales dried up alarmingly quick.

Weirdly, Smart did have a good example of how to sell cars to Americans. Up north, Smart sold diesels to the Canadians and a majority of the Smarts sold in Canada went to rural buyers who wanted to save money.

The Toyota iQ’s biggest problem came from within Toyota. The Scion iQ spent most of its time on the market with a base price of around $16,000. That made it over $1,000 more expensive than a Toyota Yaris, which had similar features, similar fuel economy, and a more spacious interior. In other words, you were once again spending more money to get less car. But it was even worse since the cheaper car came from within Toyota. You really had to desire to park in just about any space in order to want the iQ over a Yaris. At least a Smart was hands down the cheapest way into the Mercedes-Benz ownership experience.

But it somehow gets worse than that. These are two highly specialized cars — both meant to be the ultimate dense city car — in a country where they really aren’t necessary. Unless you live in New York City or San Francisco you would have gotten by just fine with a larger car that cost about the same and got close enough fuel economy. I mean, the best-selling vehicles in America are a lineup of pickup trucks, after all. So, you really had to want these cars to end up with one of them.

Then there was just the fact that the small car started dying off the further we got from the Great Recession. I’m not surprised that two of the smallest modern cars on American roads were among the first to die off. Honda eventually decided that Fit sales weren’t sustainable enough. And if Honda can’t sell tiny cars in America, Smart didn’t stand a chance.

Thus, the Scion iQ and Smart Fortwo are orphans. They didn’t sell for long and now it seems the American affiliates of their automakers would rather you forget about them. But, I think they’re still worth considering today. Both of these cars can be had for cheap and both of them stand out in the crowd of gray crossovers that dominate the roads today. They’re not the fastest, the sportiest, or the most fuel-efficient cars out there. But, both of these cars are a ball of fun.

If you’re looking at this pair, I have some recommendations. Get the iQ if you’re looking for the most conventional driving experience, Toyota quality, and more room. Consider a Smart if, like me, you’re a bit of an oddball and you don’t like doing anything the “normal” way. Either way, I think you’ll have a great time.

(Images: Author, unless otherwise noted.)