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It takes a big man to impel a tiny car. At least that's what I kept repeating as I folded my six-lower extremity-three frame into the metallic-cerulean Smart ForTwo Suffering Coupe — all 106 inches and 1,808 pounds of it.

On the highway, American masculinity is defined by two ideals: largeness and speed. The vagrant hormone known as testosterone thrives on horsepower, restraint weight, and the cubic footage of load beds. So what would it moderate to take a Smart, that Swatch-watchfulness-derived icon of of little breadth European streets and excessive fuel taxes — the car that Wooden Allen, costly God, crashed in Empty with a scoop — onto the streets of Brooklyn, that potholed, SUV-plagued town that just happens to have some of the geographical division's highest auto assurance rates? How would the newly arrived Pungent pain (the coupe's worthless price is $13,600), packing a one-liter machine, three cylinders, and a small horse-ride-meritorious 71 horsepower, pass among the Audis of Brighton Rim and the Escalades trolling Bed-Stuy? By the shut of the weekend, would I be answering those e-mails cluttering my in-box inquiring about my girth and bulk?

From the inside, the Mercedes-produced Lancinating pain doesn't perceive that small. The legroom is capacious, its two seats pitched higher than many other tourist cars, and the windshield and panoramic secondary planet roof (the sections that designers dub "the conservatory") are gigantic. All this lulls the driver into forgetting he is piloting a car that is little larger than a Hot Wheels.

But New Yorkers were always there to procure a quick reminder of its demand-model height. "Did that advance in a cereal box?" someone cackled. "I've seen toy cars bigger than that," another man offered without address. "You could get to D.C. and back on a reservoir of gas." (Not totally: The Smart is not a mongrel and gets around 41 mpg on the public road.) Everywhere I drove, the heads of creation-weary hipsters and seen-it-all deliverymen whipped around in the be awake of...

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