Smart ForTwo smart for few

I'd be zipping along happily when suddenly - BWOUGH-GRRRRR - the car would feel like a trailer full of bricks had just hitched itself to the back bumper. I'd be thrown forward in my seat until, after a moment or two, it got itself in gear, and I was fine for a little while until - BWOUGH-GRRRRR....

At first, I tried to fight back by pressing the gas pedal harder each time. But that just made matters worse, so I learned to play along by treating it like a stick shift and letting off the gas a bit whenever I felt the bog coming on. This problem is more than just an inconvenience. It could be truly frightening when I needed a quick burst of speed, and I'd mash the gas pedal only to get the opposite of what I wanted.

Fortunately, this automated manual can be shifted manually, too. In my car, the Passion Cabriolet version, I could either use steering wheel paddles or move the shift lever up and back. When I needed decent - or, more importantly, predictable - acceleration, I learned to squeeze it out myself. But driving around this way all the time would choke the car's fuel economy in an attempt to wring maximum engine power out of each gear.

NEXT: Weak warranty