• Most spacious of the Smart family
• Rear doors open to almost 90 degrees
• Flat boot floor when seats folded over

There are some clever touches making the Smart Forfour’s practicality better than a lot of cars in its class.

The primary feature in this respect is the rear door opening. They both open to 85 degrees, which really helps access the back seats, particularly useful if you’re trying to slot a wriggling toddler into a child seat.

What matters more than the Smart’s dimensions is the agility in town. A rear engine layout means there’s plenty of space for the front wheels to steer. Combined with minimal overhangs and an upright driving position for good visibility, and you have a car that you can thread through the fabric of any city.

It’s only 10-15cm shorter than many superminis, though, and you may prefer the comfort and practicality benefits of a larger car.

Having the engine under the boot floor does limit space somewhat, but less than you’d expect. There’s a minimal lip to the boot, and a flat, upright space with minimal intrusion; the rigid parcel shelf can also be quickly removed. Most people will find the boot floor a very convenient height for loading.

You can fold the seat backs down in a 50:50 split, and folding both down you’re left with a flat floor from the boot lip to the back of the front seats. This means 975 litres of storage space. It’s also possible to flip the seat bases over to use the rear passenger area for bulky items, and the front seat back can be folded fully forward for long loads.

In between the two rear seats there’s a storage box with two cup holders, but this can be removed with a simple pull if not required.

There are cup-holders in the front too, and a pull out drawer in the centre console along with a rather small glovebox.

Electric drive models lose a small amount of bootspace to a pouch that carries the charging cables; you won’t want to leave home without them.

Safety

• Four-star Euro NCAP crash-test rating
• Autonomous emergency braking not available
  
• Raft of other safety kit as standard

There’s a huge amount of equipment installed to ensure Smart Forfour safety levels are as high as they can be, but there are some notable exceptions.

You’ve got five airbags up front, but none in the rear, although on the positive side you’ll appreciate the standard-fit alarm and immobiliser, a breakdown kit, central locking, crosswind assist (which stops the car being blown off-course by gusts of wind), cruise control, hill-start assist and ISOFIX child seat points on the rear seats.

The Forfour doesn’t feature any sort of low-speed automatic braking, though. This is a pity, because many other cars in the sector have it, and it affected how the Smart performed in Euro NCAP crash tests, with a four-star result; one behind the coveted five-star score of the Volkswagen Up and its SEAT Mii and Skoda Citigo stablemates.

The Electric Drive model uses a radar for regenerative braking mode, but does not go as far as providing adaptive cruise control or autonomous emergency braking, only warnings.

Choosing Prime, Prime Sport or Brabus models nets you lane-keeping assist, which warns visually and acoustically if you’re drifting out of your lane unintentionally.

The Premium package gets rear parking sensors, and the Premium Plus package gets you a reversing camera, automatic lights and rain-sensing wipers.