Smart has arrived in US of A! It's about time, too! I rode by my first one yesterday on the way to work. I want one. Bad.

http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/5856/fortwosmartcar5lr0.jpg

http://www.smartusa.com/

Oh, the convertible one is ever so sweeeeeeeeet!

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/5483/fortwocabriolet250thumbns3.jpg

Takes you to about 12 miles per dollar, only 3 miles less than Toyota Prius. I'm going to see if I can get a test ride soon. If I get to drive it, I'll post a review.

we've had them in canada for a long time now. you can see them everywhere. they look funny :)

I really hope they get big! Eh.. you know what I mean! I would SO buy one if I was in the market for a car. Perfect commuting vehicle.

I really hope they get big! Eh...
:lol:

Range (MSRP): $16500 - $19200? :lol: :lol:
You better get some photo gigs!

I bet those cars would be great for city dwellers, and quick runs to the corner store.
I hear they only get about 40 mpg, I expected more.

Now if we could only get that $2500. car from India(I think) called the Tata, pronounced Ta Ta. I bet the feminists would have a problem with the name though. :lol: It'd probably cost about 20K by the time it met U.S. safety, emissions, insurance and lawyer standards. :(

Range (MSRP): $16500 - $19200? :lol: :lol:
You better get some photo gigs!

I'm working on it. ;)

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/for/559594861.html (Link will expire in couple of days.)

Yeah like Aylmer said, we've had them here for a couple years now, they seem to be really big with the couriers, ideal city car. However I had the chance to ride one last week while I was having a remote car starter installed in my car. They offered to give me the courtesy car. A Smart. My reaction, Yay! So I make my way to the parking lot to the little white "Fortwo" and I open the large door and enter the oddly cavernous interior and look around my first impressions were WOW what a flimsy, cheap, un-ergonomic car. The door closed with a loud "clang"... I was really surprised. I figured since they're sold at the Mercedes dealer they'd be quite nice. I was gearing up for a sweet ride to work. WRONG.
...It took me about a minute to find the ignition, which happened to be behind the Little Cheep Feeling Plasticy Shifter(to be referred to from now on as LCFPS). I turn the key and am immediately rewarded by an overly loud diesel drone. Not enough sound deadening. I guess that's what you get in a car where your sitting ON the engine. I pull it into reverse(a cheep click to the right and down)and give it some gas, engine revs,turbo spools up, I don't move. I check to see if I left the hand break on, nope everything is in place. Hum...I try again, still no movement. I try a third time, this time giving it enough gas to make any other car on the market (even yer grandma's Accent) burn rubber, and it starts to crawl backwards. Interesting. I then pop it (and when I say "pop" I really mean pop, that's the sound the LCFPS makes) into "+" and again have to give it hell to get it moving in a forward direction, should be an interesting ride to work. However I'm encouraged when I let off the gas and effortlessly coast to the parking lot exit, nope nothing dragging, handbrake isn't jammed.
Now up until this point I figured it was a fully automatic transmission and once the LCFPS was in the "+" position I was good to go. So when the tach hit 4500 rpm(redline is at 6000 which again is odd for a diesel) and it hadn't shifted up into second I figured it was only a semi-automatic, and flicked the LCFPS up and was rewarded with a second gear shift that only took what seemed like a three second neutral delay. Third gear was the same, huge delay between gears and this time I even shifted at a much more reasonable 3000 rpm. A red light up ahead meant that I'd get to down shift my little Swatch Watch of a car to a stop, pulling down on the LCFPS to a "-" sign again took that required three second delay and jerked it into a lower gear, I decided at this point to leave it in second and come to a complete stop to see if it'd stall, and to my surprise, it didn't. So at the green light I floored it, and the ugly little LCD display in the ugly upholstered dash told me proudly that it had shifted into first for me all by it's lonesome. Now seeing how this wasn't my car, it was indeed a form of rental I did what anybody else would do, I held my foot to the floor! I expected to start bouncing off the rev limiter but instead at around 5000 rpm it shifted into second, and this time there was only a two second delay between gears. Ah HA so it IS an automatic it's just really high strung! ..Anyways I decided to leave the LCFPS where it was for the remainder of my trip, and just deal with the associated high rpm diesel noise ramping up to every geriatric shift. The ride quality was as expected for a car with such a short wheelbase, rough. The first pot hole I hit felt like the grand canyon, Honestly thought I got swallowed.. The steering was tight and responsive, again to be expected from said wheelbase, but still somehow felt cheep.
Anyways the rest of the drive was uneventful, except for a few "Look at the guy in the funny clown car" stares. There was an up side though, the U-turn that I usually just barley make was a real snack in this thing, but that was really the only upside.... I wouldn't wish this car on anyone... save your money. Import a new hornet :)

Holy crap, that was quite the rant....mybad. :(

Not my cup of tea, but I saw a video of one with a superbike engine doing some pretty sweet donuts, and at the end he slammed on the brakes and did a huge endo.

I couldn't fid that video, but I did find this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPQIizRp9ck&feature=related

And along the way I found this one showing a Smart Car slammed into a concrete barrier at 70 mph. Quite an impact.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju6t-yyoU8s&feature=related

A small store owner donw the street from me here in PA has one.... she drives it to work and leaves it parked out front of her store as a billboard cuzz it is vinyl wrapped with her store logo

Thanks Zimm for the review. It was very entertaining and informative.

So it's an expensive cheep car, is what I got out of it. The only reason to get one is to tell hot chicks that you own a Mercedes, but the jig would be up as soon as you pulled up for your first date.

No I think I'll just ride the Tata instead :P

For that much coin, think I'd get used Mini, it's not as small but at least you got a real car... BMW is that much of a step down from a Merc?

The review above as far as interior/etc is valid - but the performance and engine review is not helpful for any of us in the US. The US will not be getting the turbo deisel - only a gasoline engine.
The deisel was created by Benz but not used by any Benz vehicle, the gas engine that will be used in the US was made by Mitsubishi.

The horsepower for the deisel is 40. That's it. No wonder you have to floor it. Scooters get more horsepower.

The US version will be 70HP and get a little less mpg but actually have a smaller carbon footprint than the deisel version.

The closest dealership to me is about 2 hours away for a test drive but I plan on trying it out. I would buy one I think, but they're bringing like 20k cars to the US in 2008 and have 40,000 people that have paid a reservation deposit so the waiting list will be extreme.

Tony! you got a met! I got one too. Love the thing.

anyways riding conservatively on the 599 I can get about 60mpg on the freeway so the smart comes up short, for city riding I take the scooter which got 125mpg last that I checked

Finally decided to test one out myself. The dealership turned out to be 10 min street ride from my job. I arrived to find this sexy little beast all alone in their parking lot.

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/7311/att00001kn7.jpg

I came into the dealership, where two lovely ladies pointed me to the two floor models - the standard and the convertible. I climbed into one, then another. Neat. A little rough around the edges. I could see myself in one anyway.

I climb out and after donating my license in the name of research, one of the ladies takes me outside and asks me to ride shotgun (not like there's a back sit or anything) while she straps herself in the driver's sit. She starts driving. The car does the subtle shaking thing as it goes into the first gear. It gets better thereafter. She presses a button and the roof starts folding itself backwards - 1 minute and the thing is a convertible - neat! She goes on to tell me how I can choose to drive it in manual (sorta) by shifting up or down around the streering wheel or with the stick. The cool thing was the fact that even if you set the car to be in Manual mode, it will still upshift and downshift for you (after giving it enough time to know you're not changing gears on purpose). Then she brings my attention to the fact that the car lags every time it shifts gears. She says that if you move your foot off the gas and then back onto it as you shift (to immitate driving a manual) there's a way to get rid of the lag. :wtf

Finally she pulls into a parking lot and does a pretty tight 360 around a small median. That was neat too!

Finally, I get to drive! I do the chinese firedrill thing around the car and get into the driver seat. :shock: She must have been really short, 'cause I had to move the seat back to get my (short) legs to fit. I can see how Nicole with her 34" inseam would have a problem with this. I strap myself in, put this baby in drive, and pull out! It does that slight shaking again. After a few streets I hit the highway - oh yeah, pure power - all 70hp of it! It's not exactly a Hornet, but it gets to 80 in reasonable time and does it's thing. I put it "in manual" and drop it a couple of gears. It roars a little and speeds up. (Not too bad, I guess.) A couple of exits later and a few lights ago and I'm back at the dealership.

I want to love it, but I'm unimpressed. Still, I can see how it would make a great car for city driving - when speed is irrelevant and size matters.

So let's see - will I be getting this baby? For 16,000 I'd rather buy a Benelli.

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/7384/benellibh4.jpg

Really puts things in perspective. Doesn't it?

Wow, seeing that car next to your 599 really shows how small it is. :shock: I hope you wore your helmet and riding gear during your test drive!
I actually saw one tonight at the grocery store parking lot, right next to a Ford F-350 4x4. Quite the contrast. The Smart car looked like it could be driven into the back of the truck on a pair of lawn mower ramps.

The coolest thing is seeing them parked with the rear bumper to the curb in motorcycle spots... they're all over the place like that in Paris.

And they're actually pretty tough... Top Gear did a segment where they slammed one into a concrete barrier and it held up very impressively. Not quite sure how well it absorbed impact, though.

So let's see - will I be getting this baby? For 16,000 I'd rather buy a Benelli.


Sounds like a good choice to me. Thanks for the review.

umm, I'd never buy one, I like cars.

However for the cost of that, I could buy a used one of these:

http://jasonderose.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/civic_si.jpg
Civic si Coupe
Test drove one today, it was awesome.

I saw one on the road yesterday! Wow they are smaller than they look in pictures.

It makes a mini look like a muscle car.

I saw a Smart Car a few weeks ago on the highway driving in about 3 inches of snow. Seriously. It was before the plows had made it to the area.

Are Smart Cars front or rear wheel drive?

They are rear wheel drive. Also have electronic stability program and ABS. So supposedly, they don't do too bad in bad weather.

I finally found a Smart Car I would drive!
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee224/2uponu/smart4fun.jpg

DarkTint's monster smart!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDU5BU_qSJU

The fortwo for Rednecks!! :lol: