THE motoring anthem of the millennium that “big is beautiful” has been thrown into the environmental bin to set up a confrontation for control of the booming market for the trendiest small cars. Mini has already established itself as the coolest of the new, small generation that is filling city streets, but now Smart — its wacky, “plasticated” rival — is cranking up models and production that will tear at the allegiances of motorists who want cars that are fun but create a fuss when they are seen on the streets.

The arrival of the Smart forfour heralds a move across the market range for the supermini manufacturers. Even the name takes lower-case letters, as if to emphasise that small now reigns supreme. Smart came here with its unique, sit-up-and-beg two-seat car that challenged all preconceptions of what a city car should do. But the four-seat forfour moves Smart into a new market and one that Mini already covets. Mini, however, is not standing still: the company has announced a convertible that strikes straight at the heart of Smart’s sales of its little roadster coupé.

The crossover is fascinating after years in which cars have gradually grown bigger and bulkier. The growth of two and three-car families and a generation that can afford to run a weekend car and commuter transport has widened the market as never before. Buyers want chic, but they also want frugal consumption so that a visit to the pumps does not rival the 100 per cent mortgage on their starter home; they want practical but want to look as though they always shop on the Kings Road.

Time was when you could not have both, but the market for superminis is producing models at a rate — and of a quality — that has not been seen before. Fiat’s brilliant Panda, the European Car of the Year, is just one to set the standards: near-luxury at very competitive prices, chased by Citroën’s quirky C2. Trying to make a Panda chic, though, is not a task for the faint-hearted. Mini and Smart come with cachet as standard.

Mini has captured the market for fashionable two-door cars, while Smart has defined the commuter market. But their ambitions do not stop there and both companies want to exploit their brand names worldwide to create a range of brilliant models all based on the tiny originals. Planning is surging ahead at both companies for 4 x 4s and estate versions, which could help to push output at each company to about 300,000 cars a year, a mighty number for two businesses that, to all intents and purposes, have been in full-swing production for four only years. BMW-owned Mini has already made 350,000 cars and, in the process, conquered Europe and the United States.

In the UK alone, total Smart sales should reach 25,000 with the introduction of the four-door, forcing Smart to expand its dealer network to 70 by the end of the year. That growth is being replicated around the world. But then the original Smart was a whiz-bang idea, even if sceptics need convincing. If the cynics ever travel to Rome, home of the death-or-glory motorist, they will get all the evidence they need that Smart is the ideal city car, with 40,000 weeny Smarts vying for space.

The idea seems to have captured the imagination after Smart’s difficult birth. If things had been different, the car would have been called the Swatch because the super-trendy watch firm played a big part developing it from 1993, after a feasibility study on a Mercedes-designed micro-car. The first concept version was shown in 1995, yet the car — still at this point little more than a design study — won the European Design Prize. Delay then followed delay because no one was sure whether the Smart was a winner or a potential stinker, all fad and no substance. Swatch ducked out of the project on the verge of its launch in 1998.

Mercedes ploughed on, took full control of the business and got on with production. Britain still had to wait two years for the first cars, but once they arrived, they caught on. A cabriolet two-seat car soon followed and then the roadster, a tribute to a golden age of tiny sports cars that were huge fun to drive.

A decade on from the original idea, Mercedes is now convinced that the brand is a winner — and so is the Age of the Super Small Car. The only question is whether the biggest brand in the small market will be Mini or Smart.

Explore Features

• Porsche

• BMW

• Mercedes

• Ferrari

• Bentley

• Audi

• Maserati

• Aston Martin

• Jaguar

• VW