There was a certain inevitability ...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Vandals flipped over a handful of miniature Smart cars parked in two typically quiet San Francisco neighborhoods on Monday, authorities said.

San Francisco police officers responding to reports of a loud crash at about 1 a.m. found four of the tiny energy-efficient vehicles upside down, on their side or rear.

Witnesses told police a group of six to eight people dressed in black hooded sweatshirts gathered around and tipped over at least one car in Bernal Heights, an upscale and neighborhood.

So-called "Smart tipping" became an issue several years ago in Canada and Amsterdam, where pranksters would lift the two-seaters and plop them onto their sides or dump them into canals over a series of months in 2009, auto blogs and other media reported at the time.

Smart cars, made by a division of German auto manufacturer Daimler AG, are more than three feet (one meter) shorter than a Mini Cooper and almost five feet shorter than a Volkswagon Beetle with little cargo space.

"These cars are quite small," an officer said. "If it was a full size vehicle, then it would be difficult (to tip) even with a (large) group."

In the Bay Area, a total of three flipped Smart cars were spotted on Monday within a few blocks of each other in Bernal Heights and a fourth was located in the nearby community of Portola. Police were unaware of other similar car tipping incidents in San Francisco.

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Unlike cow-tipping, car tipping could be a felony. So don't get any  smart ideas!