A Sunday drive.

For those that don't know, I haven't driven substantially since I got my licence when I turned 18. That's a long time ago. But thanks to my girlfriend's persistence, I've been refreshing my arcane driving skills. Yesterday, I spent the day driving her around Toronto. Firstly to brunch at Yonge and Eglinton, then to the supermarket in the Annex area. Finally, I drove us to a banquet up on Highway 7 and Woodbine.

If this was not crazy enough, I was driving a SMART car! I am a huge advocate of the SMART car, since it's fuel-efficient and I constantly proclaim that it's a glimpse of the future of automobiles. Now that being said, there are those that view it as an over-powered golf cart. Here's what I thought of it:

• It took us a while to figure out how to start the thing, since the ignition system is not very traditional.
• It has automatic shifting, but it's really feels like manual... with rough gear shifting and downhill slipping.
• The braking is good. As a city cyclist, I like responsive brakes, but it may be too sensistive for most people.
• The acceleration is good, which makes sense when you think about it. The car is light, so it doesn't take a lot of power to get it moving.
• In terms of speed, I drove local streets yesterday, so I don't know how it does at high speeds. The fastest I drove it was 70km/h, and it was a little shaky. It did fine at speeds up to 60km/h though.
• The "trunk" space is terrible, but again that's to be expected. I found it kind of annoying that it didn't have a glove compartment either.
• The SMART car takes diesel, and it was very fuel efficient.
• Overall, I thought the SMART car was pretty cool. It's definitely a city car though. I don't know if I'd recommend it for people going on road trips.