Being from Germany, one of the first things Cathryn noticed when she arrived in Tasmania is that: “...every second car on the road seems to be a SUV, pick-up, ute or other huge 4wheel drive.

“Most of the people driving these cars, however, don’t live on a farm in the middle of the outback and you hardly ever see more than one or two people sitting in them either.”

“By now, I’ve been on quite a few bushwalks and for most of them I wouldn’t have needed a huge car or a 4 wheel drive even for that purpose,” she muses.

Cathryn’s solution to the getting-to-work dilemma was to research the car market and get the smallest car that you can possibly buy. That just happened to be a ‘Smart’ – a German brand made by joint partners Swatch (yes, the watch maker) and Mercedes Benz. (Actually, Swatch left the team early on, as they wanted an even more visionary and fuel efficient car than Mercedes Benz dared to produce 10 years ago!)

More precisely the car is named, Smart-for-two and is so tiny it can be parked in a parking spot sideways. With a fuel efficiency of 4 – 5 L per 100L km, it easily beats the Toyota prius and, says Cathryn “It’s a fun car to drive! We do all our week’s worth of shopping in it, I drive it to work and we use it also for going on bushwalks.”

Now, we aren’t into advertising any corporate brand, but this vehicle illustrates how much efficiency can be got out of a tiny car engine without loss of performance and functionality. The boot easily fits 4 or 5 Woolworths shopping bags, with more space behind the seats.

“You can easily get a speeding ticket in the 100 zone along the highway! It’s really a tardis, my partner is 6 foot tall and he comfortably comes along for a drive!”

Cathryn is passionately concerned about climate change and does everything possible to reduce her footprint. Needless to say, a motorised vehicle is not the be all and end all of her travel solutions.

For those interested, here is a list of the 10 most fuel efficient cars on the Australian market:

1) Fiat 500 1.3L,4 seats Diesel 4.2L/100kms,
2) Citroen C3 1.6L ,5 seats Diesel 4.4L/100kms
3) Fiat Punto 1.3L, 5 seats Diesel 4.4L/100kms
4) Toyota Prius Hybrid 1.5L, 5 seats Elec/Petrol 4.4L/100kms
5) Citroen C4 1.6L, 5 seats Diesel 4.5L/100kms
6) Fiat Punto 16V 90HP 1.3L, 5 seats Diesel 4.5L/100kms
7) Honda Civic Hybrid 1.3L, 5 seats Elec/Petrol 4.6L/100kms
8) Hyundai i30 1.6 DSL 1.6L, 5 seats Diesel 4.7L/100kms
9) Smart fortwo Coupe 1.0L, 2 seats Petrol 4.7L/100kms
10) Citroen C4 9HY 1.6L, 5 seats Diesel 4.8L/100kms
Given that diesel is a more efficient than petrol, it is not surprising to see that seven of the top ten cars use diesel!

But these have all now been trumped by the just released Ford Fiesta Econetic, coming in at just 3.7 litres/100km. Shows what can happen when business is forced to the wall.

[Most car manufacturers do not import their small-engined models into Australia because the market here generally demands large, powerful cars.]