English writer and lecturer Sydney Smith is said to have coined the phrase “square peg in a round hole” at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in the early 1800s. However, Wikipedia says he’s remembered in the US for his rhyming recipe for salad dressing:

Two boiled potatoes, strained through a kitchen sieve,
Softness and smoothness to the salad give;
Of mordant mustard take a single spoon—
Distrust the condiment that bites too soon;
Yet deem it not, thou man of taste, a fault,
To add a double quantity of salt.

I was reminded of his former saying, when trying to fit something in my 2006 Smart ForTwo. The French-made “art” of Swatch and Mercedes is a shade over 2.5 metres (100 inches) long, with probably at least a fifth of that length in front of your feet.

So, that leaves around 2 metres (6.5 feet) of interior space on the driver’s side. A foam block which covers the floor-mounted battery on the passenger side eats into that.

I recently found myself pushing a tape measure into my Smart from the back window, to see if there was enough room for a large, long window blind. The rear glass window gave me some leeway on length, which was just as well as I don’t think any other car in my fleet could have picked up the blind.

The Suzuki X-90 would need to have a T-top removed, and have the blind poking out of the rooftop.

The PolskiFiat 126p Niki was probably not long enough inside, although I could have tied it to the roof.

The Suzuki Mighty Boy wasn’t big enough in the cabin or the rear tray, and is on car club registration.

It would have fitted in the Subaru XT Vortex with the rear seat folded down, but that car is also on limited use club registration, so is not legally permitted to make a trip to the shops.

The shop website said the blind would be a little over 2 metres (6.5 feet).

I decided it would fit in the Smart, after removing the foam block in the passenger footwell and measuring the length diagonally from the driver’s side rear corner.

However, after buying the blind and seeing the tall, thin package tower over the 1.5 metre (59 inch) high Smart in the car park, I was worried I’d be taking the blind home with the back window somewhat open. I’d brought along a strap, just in case that was the solution.

Luckily, the package fitted – just – with the passenger side foam block removed. I once was blind, but now I see!

It’s not the first time I’ve fitted a seemingly impossible load into a vehicle. I once pushed a futon bed-style lounge into a 1996 Land Rover Discovery, via the rear door. It was in the ‘upright lounge seat’ position, to reduce its width. The lounge finished its journey through the car over the passenger front seat, which had to be folded down. It was previously moved in the Hyundai Trajet, but that wasn’t difficult at all with the seats taken out.

The Disco also took 2 old mattresses to the dump, with its creative capacity.

Also crammed into a car: long planks of timber, going through the rear ski port of my Hyundai Grandeur and resting on the leather-covered armrest between the front seats. I put down a towel underneath them.

Plus, in the back of a Citroen C4 VTR hatch, an 80s electronic organ I saw on the roadside, for giveaway. I scavenged some parts for my own Yamaha.

Perhaps the most ever crammed into a car, was in my 80s Mitsubishi Colt when I took on a new job in 2003, 10 hours’ drive away in Sydney.

In the back of the Colt was a plastic dining table, some plastic chairs, a bedside table and plastic drawers filled with clothes. Before I set up home in a poolside former billiards room, I’d have to squeeze a foam double bed mattress and portable TV into the Colt as well.

Sydney Smith’s salad dressing recipe might not impress Homer Simpson, who once said “you don’t win friends with salad”. But having a car that fits square pegs into round holes, with fold-down seats, a ski port, or a foam block to lift out, might widen your circle of friends. Friends moving house, that is.