Microcars - cars barely big enough to fit a couple passengers - have been widely popular in the past, but regulations and changing tastes ultimately killed them in the US by the 1970s, and even once microcar-heavy countries around the world are slowly moving into vehicles with a bit more metal. Of course, there are neighborhood electric vehicles, go karts, and the like, but we're talking about fully street legal transportation, a vehicle you could drive from California to New York if you wanted to. The smallest fully street legal car offered in the US market - and one of the smallest in the Western world - is the Smart.
The unlikely source of the Smart is Mercedes Benz and Swatch, a watch manufacturer. Smart originally stood for Swatch Mercedes ART. The concept was developed by Swatch executives beginning in the late 1980s. Volkswagen backed the concept in the beginning, but the company was ultimately founded in 1994 as a joint venture between Swatch and Daimler Benz (now Daimler AG), makers of Mercedes Benz. The first Smart car was built in October 1998.
The original Smart has been in production for 16 years now, having been renamed the fortwo in 2004, redesigned in 2006, and introduced to the US in early 2008.
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