Smart Cars?

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Robbie2734

Robbie2734

Lambcharger
Joined
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Location
Milford NJ
I was in Europe 2 years ago, with gas at 4 bucks a gallon this is what we saw. The 2nd pic is kinda neat.....

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went and test drove one in febuary. neat lil car. alot more room inside then you would think. they will sell alot of thise cars in the citys. for mileage there are roomier cars that get the same or better though. they are meant to be used in the city.
 
That second picture looks like the dune buggy fad will get a second life! And as for the third picture, that's a Messerschmidt, a tandem 2 seater (like in a Jet cockpit) micro-car built in the 50's. You can see Cousin It driving one in the original Adam's Family movie.... FUNKY little car!

I sat in one of those Smart cars at the NY Auto Show last week. Neat car...

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With the prices I've seen on the Mercedes connected one by importers here I have to think how long it would take me to make up that much money in petrol savings! They are neat cars though. Seem roomy inside.
 
MoparBrit said:
With the prices I've seen on the Mercedes connected one by importers here I have to think how long it would take me to make up that much money in petrol savings! They are neat cars though. Seem roomy inside.
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one that has decent options goes for like 14k. like i said though, those cars are not about the mileage. its about parking them in the city. honda and toyota both have cars that are bigger,have more room in them and get as much or better mileage.
 
We haul them for M/B. They would be ok for around downtown maybe but I think I would not drive them anywhere else.
We can haul 15 at a time. The drivers have problems when the get close to another one when the deck is at a slope. They don't want to creep forward. So you give it a bit more gas to move 3 inches and all it does is make noise. You step on the gas a bit more and all of a sudden it jumps forward.
Typical Mercedes throttle response. Nothing,nothing nothing-zoom.
I'll keep my Mustang GT.
 
I lived in Switzerland when they were introduced- I thought they looked kind of jouncy and unstable. Friends have them and love them. There is an amazing amount of room inside, for people. Kind of a cool city car, would be great in SF or other urban areas where you don't move fast and there is NO parking. My Fit gets 38 mpg, and the Smart only gets 33, bummer.

Peter
 
Although they are marketed as city cars, until the cities offer Smart Car sized parking spaces, they are STILL going to use a full-sized car parking space. You can easily park 2 Smarts at a single space, but if it's got a parking meter, guess what? Only ONE is allowed to park there...

That's problem #1. Never mind the haters out there that will find pleasure in tossing them into the East River just for laughs... Or using them as beach balls with their Hummers.
 
They're supposed to get close to 50 mpg city and 70 mpg highway. We actually have some, not many, but some really small parking spaces designed for these cars and motorcycles I suppose. There's quite a few of them where I live and I've seen them whipping down the highway at 60 mph+ which I would think would be scary with such a short wheelbase.
 
Compared to 17 though that 33 mpg looks pretty good. lol Still a cost issue for me at least. Even with the horrible price of petrol it would take me a long time to make up the purchase of one.
I'm not totally up on the cars, but seems there is an imported MB made one and then they are some that are US cars from official dealerships now. The actual imported MB ones (through talking to a MB Smart dealer last year) sell for more than the others. Probably his hype to make profit and sell his cars before the US ones were going strong who knows. Importer here was charging somewhere around $25,000 or more for the MB one they imported. The CA dealer was around $26,000 or so. Said that the USA one that was either out or coming out would be around $12,000-17,000 or so depending on model. Tried to say the quality was not the same. Still see the imported ones on Auto Trader for $20-25,000. Still a chunk of change for me either way you slice it!

Did see a competition stereo car that was a Smart once. Advertised himself as the Worlds Loudest Smart. Wish I could find the site for that one again. Had some really outrageous builds and cars.

Also, somewhere or other I saw a video online where they did a crash test with a smart. Looked very impressive. Hmmm, might have to go look on Utube and see if it was there.

Cheers
 
Here is a load of them. They are imported by Roger Penske thru the Mercedes system.
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Of course, for a FEW dollars more you could have the car that I just delivered today.
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The ones that were imported by small importers like Zap in Santa Rosa CA, and were sold for 30k, were the same old Smart, the first version, and USED ONES. They were so pricey because there were federalized one at time. When MB etc decided to officially import them, last year, the market for the 26-30K Smarts evaporated. I looked at one from Zap, and it was a used car, with imperfections and all. The new second series are, I think, 8 inches longer than the first. As for the mpg, the Euro version has been a turbo 600cc diesel, and we'll get a gas 1.0 or something.

Peter
 
kinda like a prius............iiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttsssssssssssssggggggggggaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!
 
These guys are rapidly becoming my favorite car show on TV. Think the smart is a small car? It's old news....

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Ive seen about 10 of the Smart cars in our area lately, they are popping up like crazy.
 
Just remember...... the fuel mileage that is published is done so by the EPA, not the manufacturer. And we all know how the EPA fuel mileage is not based on real world testing. Of course, my big boss has a Camry Hybrid and I have seen 35 mpg on it.
 
I saw two of them driving yesterday in San Jose. What a unsafe pile of CRAP!!!
They get lously millage for such a small car. Get that european crap out of here. Here in the USA we have real roads and real parking lots. They are popular in europe because1/2 the roads and cities were built before cars were even thought of, they were designed for a horse drawn carts. They need small cars.
 
I'll take that Mercedes! Dam, thats a beautiful car. Carbon fiber body, exaust up front like a piston engine fighter plane and swoopy lines. Never mind that I couldn't afford the insurance or the purchase price, lol!
 
Yeah, we've got a lot of those up here in Canada. I'm not sure why it took so long to get them into the American market though. They're interesting. At first everyone thought they were stupid, but now people are used to them. I wouldn't mind having one as a commuter, but they're a little pricey still.
 
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