Smart finally coming to the USA

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Next-gen smart models caught testing in the US!

Leftlanenews.com
Leftlane News reader Gerhard Rivera snapped some great photos of the forthcoming 2008 Smart ForTwo in testing in the United States. Spotted at a gas station in the Colorado Rockies, the car is one of the first Smart prototypes we've heard of being in America. In late June, DaimlerChrysler announced it would bring the Smart brand to the United States in 2008. These photos confirm that the ForTwo will get a new headlight design to reflect the change at sister company Mercedes from dual-oval headlamps to sleeker one-piece lights.
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Yowzas that thing is small! The dude on the chopper seems to be almost the same size, the Trailblazer and Corolla behind it towering over it like a Playschool plastic car thingy for three-year-olds.

Thats cool that they are allready testing though, as I'm sure they have a few things to adjust for the American market...
 
I've been to that very gas station. It's in Poncha Springs - a rural area but the most spectacularly beautiful I've ever seen. The term "in the Rocky Mountains" is dead wrong; it's actually right next to the Sawatch Range in a low-lying area the locals refer to as the Arkansas Valley. And trust me - cars like that are uncommon as hell there.
 
Too bad Diamler Chrysler is pulling out, because if they had not, there would be a four door, an SUV, a Roadster and a sportscar! now only the Fortwo will be here.
 
That thing is horrible. I understand that it gets good mileage but what good is it? I prob don't wanna know the 0-60 time. Also, if one of those things gets in a crash with an SUV, game over.
 
0-60? Over ten seconds, under twenty. Good enough for a commuter car. And it gets a gazillion mpg while doing it, whereas, in most bigger cars, to meet or approach their EPA consumption figures, you actually have to accelerate that slowly.

Point of correction: Anything gets into a crash with an SUV, and it's game over. Sometimes, (actually, a LOT of times) for the person in the SUV. (I can cite thousands of cases, including two or three high profile accidents occuring within the last year).

Size alone is not a valid indicator of crash-stiffness or survivability. If we go by real-world survivability alone, the Subaru WRX is probably the safest car in the universe, given the number of speed freaks who have walked away from accidents in them. And it's a damn sight smaller than many other cars on the road.

The Smart has been developed to have a very stiff crash structure, and while bigger cars may score a bit higher in mandatory low speed testing, remember, a major factor in high speed crashes is the amount of momentum. Less car = less momentum = less force.

And, I told you guys it was laughably small. That's why it's got an uphill climb for sales in other parts of the world, where other superminis give you more seats and space, with similar size and consumption, for much less money.

The Roadster was a sad loss, though. That was the one Smart I could actually see myself buying (In fact, I want one). And it has about as much useable space as the ForTwo.

The ForFour is just a Mitsubishi Colt. Good car, but the Colt is a better value.
 
Well my car has a 0-60 of 7.8 and thats slow by my book. I'm saving up right now to buy a catback dual exhaust for it.

Second the Impreza WRX is no where close to being the safest car. Here are the safest cars on the road today according to the NHTSA: Acura RL, Ford Crown Vic, Lincoln Town Car, Mercury Grand Marquis, and the Volvo S80. The Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury are all the same car and they have one thing in common BIG. So I guess size does make a car safer.
 
No no no!

The Crown Vic and Marquis are the same car, the same body-on-frame model they have been building since the early '90s! The Volvo S80 has nothing to do with the others with the exception they are owned by the same company. The S80 shares it's platform with the Ford Fivehundred and Freestyle, and the Mercury Montego.
 
=V8 Power=
That thing is horrible. I understand that it gets good mileage but what good is it? I prob don't wanna know the 0-60 time. Also, if one of those things gets in a crash with an SUV, game over.
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dude, has it ever occured to you that there are cars on the market whose purpose is a different one than getting you from nought to sixty in the shortest amount of time?

especially in this case i belive that its pretty obvious that this is not a sportscar...
its a perfect city runabout though and thats exactly what its intended for. you can find a space to park it everywhere and it can transport two people and two crates of beer, what more do you want? :)
oh and it is pretty safe for a small car and it can even manage to deliver some cheap thrills...a mate of mine got one and whenever he throws it into a corner i find myself looking for the lamborghini-panic-bar.:crazy:
 
You foget that =V8Power= is an American (as am I), and everything is about numbers in the US. Thats why the Honda Jazz that is sold here was beefed up to meet US standards, and the numbers game is also part of the reason why small cars have been rejected for so long in the US.

...That said, the smart is still too small. Two dudes and a case of beer apiece isn't much, and really would only do good in a large city like New York or Chicago. Head out to the boonies, or to even a slightly smaller city, and you can still make it by with a larger car easy enough as it is.
 
YSSMAN
No no no!

The Crown Vic and Marquis are the same car, the same body-on-frame model they have been building since the early '90s! The Volvo S80 has nothing to do with the others with the exception they are owned by the same company. The S80 shares it's platform with the Ford Fivehundred and Freestyle, and the Mercury Montego.
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NHTSA: "Lincoln's Town Car is a gussied-up Crown Vic" As I said the three (Ford, Lincoln, Mercury) are the same car.

Second, I never said the S80 was the same car?

vladimir
its a perfect city runabout though and thats exactly what its intended for. you can find a space to park it everywhere and it can transport two people and two crates of beer, what more do you want?
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Have you ever had to pick up something bigger than a case of beer? What about a new TV, a new computer, any new furniture? I could think of a million things that woudln't fit in that vehicle. So to get those things you would have to have a trailer, o wait it doesn't have enough power to pull a trailer. See how more power equals bigger car equals more possibilites?
 
Oops, youre right. I can't read that well. Sometimes I wonder if I need to go to the Derek Zoolander School For Kids Who Can't Read Too Good....
 
=V8 Power=
Have you ever had to pick up something bigger than a case of beer? What about a new TV, a new computer, any new furniture? I could think of a million things that woudln't fit in that vehicle. So to get those things you would have to have a trailer, o wait it doesn't have enough power to pull a trailer. See how more power equals bigger car equals more possibilites?
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then please enlighten me where you'd store that new couch you've just bought in the corvette thats displayed in your avatar?

oh and we've managed to buy our furniture without owning a car at all..

the smart isn't meant to haul around yer boat, its a city runabout as i already said. its supposed to be only sold in the large citys like new york.
 
vladimir
then please enlighten me where you'd store that new couch you've just bought in the corvette thats displayed in your avatar?

oh and we've managed to buy our furniture without owning a car at all..

the smart isn't meant to haul around yer boat, its a city runabout as i already said. its supposed to be only sold in the large citys like new york.
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I don't drive a corvette but maybe someday I will. If I ever do own one it will be a second car.

My dad drives a Silverado and it along with all other trucks is the most versatile and usefull vehicle made. I drive a Monte Carlo which still has a very big trunk. However the first new vehicle I will buy someday, will be a pickup truck.

I don't live in a city so I guess I wouldn't understand the Smart's usefullness.
 
i kinda expected that you don't drive a corvette just because its in your avatar.
according to your logic however, a corvette would be just as useless as a smart because it doesn't exactly enable you to transport a couch either.
altough it does have more space in the trunk than a smart for sure. ;)

anyway, i suspect that were you live a truck is very useful. but in a city it isn't really. i live in a town and whenever we bought something large, we had it delivered for a modest fee.
a truck would be just useless here (not that i would mind owning one anyway, since i love all kinds of cars.)
a smart however is rather useful. it saves space, uses very little gas, allows you to drive to work or get the groceries. exactly what a lot of people want.
it not supposed to be the ride for a large family or to take you over the alps for holiday.
there are quite a few smarts driving around here, but when i was in rome last fall i was surprised by how many i saw. now rome is pretty cramped and congested even by european standards and the smart is the perfect car for such a place. especially when lots of romans even only rely on their small scooters for transport.
 
Your right about the vette not qualifying for my logic, but because its so fast and it would be a second car it doesn't matter.

I was thinking that people who have Smarts would only have that one car? Maybe I was wrong and most people would have it as a second car?
 
depends on what one wants...

my mates smart is the second car in their family, but i guess others can do with only a smart. i mean we have no car at all because we don't need one.
if i could afford one i would surely have a car, but that would just be because i love cars, not because i needed one.
 
vladimir
i kinda expected that you don't drive a corvette just because its in your avatar.
according to your logic however, a corvette would be just as useless as a smart because it doesn't exactly enable you to transport a couch either.
altough it does have more space in the trunk than a smart for sure. ;)

anyway, i suspect that were you live a truck is very useful. but in a city it isn't really. i live in a town and whenever we bought something large, we had it delivered for a modest fee.
a truck would be just useless here (not that i would mind owning one anyway, since i love all kinds of cars.)
a smart however is rather useful. it saves space, uses very little gas, allows you to drive to work or get the groceries. exactly what a lot of people want.
it not supposed to be the ride for a large family or to take you over the alps for holiday.
there are quite a few smarts driving around here, but when i was in rome last fall i was surprised by how many i saw. now rome is pretty cramped and congested even by european standards and the smart is the perfect car for such a place. especially when lots of romans even only rely on their small scooters for transport.
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Ahhh, Rome I went there in 03 and boy there sure are a lot of Smarts there!

When you are on a bus and you see them, you think BUG ON THE WINDSHIELD!:)
 
Acutally the Vette Coupe has quite a bit of room in the trunk, surprisingly more so than the Mustang Coupe. It will swallow quite a bit of stuff, but it certainly isn't an SUV.
 
RE: Subaru WRX and crash safety: I was talking about real world survivability: which means that a damn lot of Subarus have crashed at very high speeds, and a lot of those stupid drivers have walked away from the crash.

Like I said, NHTSA crash tests are a good indicator of how a car will fare in a crash at that particular speed in those particular circumstances, but it doesn't translate to overall safety per se, it merely points to the fact that that particular car meets that particular marker. In fact, some argue that the NHTSA's crash testing regimen is outdated and should be modified to reflect a wider range of real life situations. It doesn't test roll-over safety or rear-collisions, for example... (remember the Tongan prince killed a few weeks ago?)

Crash tests done at 35mph also don't translate one on one with actual crashes happening at 60mph or 120...

Hence the debate over which crash tests are more relevant, the European or North American ones, and how a five-star car from one market can get only three stars in the other. And those stars are also relative, anything over three gives you 8 out of 10 chances of walking away without injury (not death, mind you).

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BUT yes... the Smart is too damn small to be practical. It's cute, though, and if it came in at a reasonable, non-luxury price, it'd be a good alternative to scooters.
 
Sooo.... sorry to revive the thread, but instead of starting a new thread, I was wondering if anyone has 'reserved' a Smart in the US, or has purchased one recently in other places..... :)
 
No, but Monday I saw one on the road over here. Looked great. I didn't have my digicam with me so I couldn't take pics.
 
Matthew Keller
Sooo.... sorry to revive the thread, but instead of starting a new thread, I was wondering if anyone has 'reserved' a Smart in the US, or has purchased one recently in other places..... :)
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I haven't seen any yet, and I haven't heard from my Boss as to whether or not his Father-in-Law was going to be opening a SMART dealer or not. Chances are that I'll see them headed this way from Chicago and Detroit, but it is hard to say how popular they will be in a moderate sized city like Grand Rapids...
 
So.. how much do you think it would cost to enclose, and road legalize a golf cart?

This thing is just too darn expensive to be practical. It's too darn expensive for what you get. Maby if it started at $10,000 that would be one thing...
 
Hadn't seen this thread the last time around.

Good to see that you're finally getting them south of the border. Up here in Canuckia, we've had them for a couple years (which you all probably knew). In my area, they seem to have sold surprisingly well. I see them quite often.

The City of Victoria has implemented a good incentive to get a smart car, ontop of the federal gov't rebates (totalling $2000). In downtown Victoria, there have been special "Smart Car" parking spaces designated. They are only big enough to fit a smart car, or an original Mini, and are free of charge. It's a very good incentive in an area where parking is at a premium.

Coincidentally, and responding to MK's post, my stepmom may be getting a Smart car soon. It's not a done deal yet, but it's more practical then her current MX-5 for her job. We figure that between the gas and parking savings, and gov't rebates that it will only cost just over $100 CDN a month, net, to lease it. And it doesn't have to undergo repairs from our wallet.


Edit - You know why I'm really glad it's coming stateside? So that Toyota can STFU about the Prius being the most fuel efficient car in the States. This beats it by a solid 20 MPG in the Canadian ratings, and I imagine it will do the same there.
 
Yeah, the Toyota Press Department has had a helluva good time trying to make a good case for the Prius with the EPA figures adjusted. Hybrids took a nose-dive in efficiency, and oddly enough, many large-displacement models had a fuel mileage increase...
 

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