"So where's your Chihuahua?" That's just one of the sassy remarks Brian Spencer has heard since last October, when he became one of the first of about 1,350 Canadians to purchase Mercedes-Benz's tiny smartfortwo car.

Hundreds more have put down deposits on the Smart Car, as it's popularly known, consenting to languish on waiting lists until the next shipments begin arriving later this month, says JoAnne Caza, director of marketing and public relations for Mercedes-Benz Canada.

With a base price of $16,500 for the coupe model and $19,500 for the cabriolet, the three-cylinder Smart Car measures just 2.5 metres in length. It has a rear-mounted turbodiesel engine placed directly over the wheels, a reinforced-steel frame, anti-lock brakes and an ESP (electronic stability program) that can't be disengaged.

To many observers, it resembles a child's toy, a Pez dispenser, a Kleenex box or - especially in red, which is proving to be the most popular colour - a ladybug.

Photo courtesy of Mercedes-Benz Canada
Mercedes-Benz has found a hot market for its smartfortwo car in Canada despite the lack of an advertising campaign.

Spencer, a Toronto computer programmer, says he's enjoying all the smiles and rubbernecking his boxy novelty is attracting almost as much as he's getting a kick out of driving, parking and buying minuscule amounts of fuel for the diminutive vehicle he nicknamed Grunty.

And he deserves that pleasure, says Caza, because it was only vociferous demand from wannabe owners such as Spencer that convinced Mercedes-Benz's German HQ to bring the Smart Car to Canada long before it otherwise would have arrived.

The vehicle was launched in Europe in 1999 and by 2004 annual sales there had risen to 124,000 units. Initially, "North America wasn't even on the horizon," Caza says. An American rollout was slated for 2006, with Canada to follow at an unspecified future date.

But the logic of that scenario was confounded, says Caza, by "all the excitement at last year's auto show in Toronto, plus fantastic press (coverage) ... together with a tremendous number of e-mail requests from across the country. The verdict was unanimous - Canadians wanted this car. So we made a business case and presented it to Germany."

The result was a hurried decision to earmark 400 cars for Canada for the first year. But a month after arriving last fall, all 400 had sold out. The allotment was then doubled and ultimately raised to 915 - quite a scramble for the just-in-time plant in Hambach, France.

But even that number sold out quickly and has since been increased to roughly 1,350.

"And what's interesting is that it didn't just happen in major urban markets," says Caza. "We expected the Smart Car to be popular in places like Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal," just as it is in Paris, Rome and Milan.

"But they're also doing extremely well in Halifax, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Victoria."

What's also interesting is that the Canadian appetite for Smart cars is being driven exclusively by word of mouth and media kudos.

Mercedes-Benz Canada is doing no advertising because, says Caza, "we don't want people coming to the showrooms expecting to buy one and drive it away an hour later."

So what prompted the demand initially? Spencer's experience is typical.

"The first one I saw was in Italy. I thought it was really cool, but I just figured that, like many other European things, it would probably never make it to Canada," Spencer says. "But a couple years later ... a friend of mine saw a Smart Car on the street and I just went crazy until I could get my hands on one."

So is Grunty everything Spencer expected? "Pretty much," he says.

He's pleased with the car's fuel consumption, which is averaging about five litres per 100 kilometres, about 55 miles per gallon. Acceleration seems "a bit less powerful than larger cars, yet I keep up with other traffic really well. Driving it feels nippy, meaning that I can duck in and out with ease and get out of slow or stopped lanes with what seems like no room to spare.

"Comfort-wise, I'm about five-foot-10 and I've got all the leg room I need. And the seats embrace me so well that I feel completely in control at high speeds on the freeway and even in bad weather conditions," he says.

"About the only limitation from my point of view," Spencer concludes, "is that it takes longer to warm up the interior because diesel engines don't run as warm as gas engines. But that's a very small thing."

(Terry Poulton can be reached at poulton@businessedge.ca)