And what is a Forfour anyway? A four-seater Smart, as its name implies. The visuals similarly implicate it, all two-tones, plastic panels, a choice of three roof designs (plastic, glass fixed and glass electric sunroof) and a presumed Tridion 'safety cage'. But something has strayed from the deeper Smart message beneath. Despite its looks, the Forfour is perilously close to a normal car.

It has a transverse front engine, front-wheel drive, MacPherson struts up front, torsion-beam axle behind, and a five-door body. It is made not at Hambach, France, like its fellow Smartsters but at the Dutch Born factory of Nedcar where once were made Volvo 340s. It is, in fact, a joint DaimlerChrysler/Mitsubishi venture which will soon also bring us a new Colt, one version of which should make a lot of us quite happy.

Does the Forfour's crossbred heritage matter? So many questions. The reality is that marketing is more important to a carmaker than conceptual purity; the Smart marketeers draw involved charts showing just where the Forfour sits in fun-to-drive, emotional temperature, youthfulness and affluence contexts. To wit: much more fun than a Toyota Yaris but less worrying oversteer than a MINI (eh?). Temperature a few degrees below the MINI thermostat, buyers keen on designer names and likely to move on to a Merc when they've grown up.

The original Smart created a look, the look now creates the new Smart. Thus the plastic wings/doorskins/bonnet are exchangeable with some effort, and we shall overlook that two of the bonnet vents are fake.

Inside, we find the fabric facia covering necessary for the Smart identity, plus round eyeball vents, ingenious storage 'solutions' and a total absence of fake leathergrain.
And what's this? A gearlever, and what looks suspiciously like a third pedal. Yes, folks, meet the manual, shift-as-you-like-it Smart... but there's a six-speed 'Softip' paddle-shift semi-auto option, so as not to baffle buyers trading up from smaller Smarts.

Other interior stuff includes seats whose foldability extends to a slideable rear seat (normally a shaped two-seater, optionally a three-seat bench) and a 'Lounge' option. Here, everything reclines flat and extra scatter cushions support the parts mere seats don't reach.

So far, so achingly lifestylee. Now we need an engine. There are five to choose from, three petrol ones made in Thuringia, eastern Germany, in a Mitsubishi/DC joint venture, two diesels built by Mercedes at its Untert