Has anyone actually place a reservation yet to purchase a SMART?

This is one vehicle I'm looking at as a 3rd car for the family.

 

hummm... i see those in canada all the time, pretty cool.

but for my family car i need a sedan/5dr.

 

That's covered, my daughter will be driving in another year and I was thinking, she'll get a pickup truck or my MINI and I'll get this to tool around the hood and commute to work in.

It already has the wife stamp of approval...

 

very nice! what kind of mpg on these smart cars?
i bet you can save a lot on gas too. (especially if in bumper to bumper
stop-n-go kinda traffic).

 

I thought about getting one & driving it 4 days a week to prolong the life of my MINI but before I even consider it Smart is going to have to tell me exactly where they plan to locate dealerships. I feel like Smart service centers will be even more sparse than Mini ones & no way in hail am I going to own 2 autos that require me to drive 320+ round trip miles for repairs

 

My parents were looking at the Smart last year but since it wasn't available in the States, they got a Prius. I'd much rather get the Roadster or Coupe (both discontinued) over the Forfour.

 

I have been waiting for the SMARTs to offically come to the states since I got to drive one for Target a few years back. I am seriously considering one, but I am going to speak with my local Mercedes-Benz dealer first to get an idea of their intentions with the product.

 

I think it's the Smart for Two that is coming to the US unless there's another one I don't know about

 

Ah - eternal optimism!

 

Dealer in Palatine off 14 just east of Hicks. I'll have stop and get a photo for you one of these days, if you don't stop by and test drive one soon.

 

I drove one for the weekend for Target last year also. If I were commuting in the city (stop & go), I'd get one for sure. mpg is waaay up there since there's only 3 cylinders. Someone got me a flyer to place an order. the price was a bit steep. If you travel off hours on the highway, you should be fine.

 

Yes, the SMART FourTwo and FourTwo Cabrio are coming to the US:

 

If it only had a real gearbox. From what I've heard, the slushbox in these is pretty bad. Also, 40+ mpg . Come on, this thing has the aerodynamics of a brick to only get 40 mpg.

 

my civic can do 40mpg...

 

Yea the MPG does seem low. I have read that the expected MPG would range 48-80 so I wonder WTH they did to it to lower the MPG

 

They're pretty common here, especially in cities. Very small though, wouldn't want to be in on in a crash.

Brother in law has the sportster with a 600cc engine.

 

Now that is funny from a MINI owner!!!

As we have all said to the Hummer owners, don't let the size fool you:

Smart fortwo crash-test results
"The E-Class and the fortwo were tested in an offset frontal collision at 50 km/h. While you can see the front of the fortwo disappearing during the collision and the rear structure of the car collapsing, the passenger compartment stays virtually intact. Other tests the fortwo have passed include a frontal crash at 65 km/h into a deformable barrier, rear end crash at 55 km/h and a side impact at 50 km/h. In every test, the fortwo deformation values were below all internationally recognised standards (the lower the value the better)."

http://www.canadiandriver.com/articles/jk/040908.htm

 

There ain't no forfour. There's only a fortwo in the US

 

I was excited to learn of the Smart car, but I have serious doubts it will make it in the US, except maybe in very large cities. I think that's why the plan is to sell them through Penske. If it doesn't pan out, DC wouldn't have invested in the buildings, land, etc. I would wait a few years to see how committed Daimler is to selling them in the US.

 

The SMART in America dosn't even seem worth it to me. With all of the emmisions/safety regulations it's MPG drops by almost half compared to foreign models. And with a pricetag in the 30k's, it dosn't do anything for me. You would need to drive it a hell of a lot to have the minor savings in gas pay off on it. Better off getting a Honda and running it for 200,000 miles, they get some solid MPG, and never break.

 

I saw a Smart car last week driving along.... the driver looked terrified. Seriously. Everyone is whizzing by and the traffic was pretty normal for rush hour and this person was obviously scared spitless. They were going about as fast as they could, which was not the 70 mph that the rest of the Houston rush hour traffic was doing. After seeing that there is no way I'd do a Smart car for a commute.

 

I agree on the MPG but the pricetag is much lower. Smart Pure starts under $12K, Smart Passion under $14K, & the cabrio under $17K

 

Actually a lot of the EU regulations are stricter than US. Like the pedestrian impact one that made MINI reshape the hood on the new model. Emissions has also gotten a LOT stricter there.

What gives some of their models higher MPG are the teenytiny motors they're using in some models. When gas is so expensive, people are willing to forgo performance for economy a lot more there, and a lot of the driving there is different than here. We drive a lot more, longer distances, and demand for the lower performance motors hasn't been high here. It's also one reason we don't see the diesel models a lot of the rest of the world enjoy-the automakers don't see the demand.

A lot of the threads here concerning MC vs MCS, for instance, makes 120HP seem too small, and 175HP barely adequate. So we don't see the MINI ONE or D with their 95 or 110HP.

 

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Now **THAT** is a SMART car I could see myself driving.

 

Exactly. But they stopped making them