AggieDave 6 #1 October 8, 2004 I think maybe. Actually, this thing is pretty cool...now if only you could put a lift kit on it and some 35" tires...BAM it'd be badass. I'm only posting the 1st page of the 3 page article...please follow the link for the rest and please follow the link for a pic. (EDIT: Added a pic) CLICKY QuoteAbigail is stopped at a red light when a couple of teenage skaters pick up their boards and peer into the window. She half expects some punk-ass sneers. After all, she's driving a neon-blue microcar that looks as though it belongs in a Hot Wheels collection. Her plastic-bodied ride, nearly 4 feet shorter than a Mini, is the least fast, least furious thing ever to hit US streets. Breaking into a smile, one kid blurts: "Can we hug your car?" What's not to love? Abigail's Smart Fortwo, which she has been tooling around Washington, DC, as part of a focus group, is engineered by Mercedes; an early model already sits in the permanent collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art. But behind Smart's quirky design hides a radically sensible car. The Fortwo can park practically anywhere, even sideways in a compact garage spot. A diesel model, like Abigail's, gets nearly 70 miles to the gallon, making supergreen hybrids such as the 55-mpg Toyota Prius look like gas-guzzlers. And this year, a major study ranked the Fortwo's tailpipe the least polluting in the world, ahead of more than 1,200 cars. Over the past decade, the Mercedes spinoff called Smart has emerged as Europe's most daring car company. It has rolled out a four-wheeled motorcycle. It has introduced a novel interlocking design that allows owners to change the car's color panels as often as they change cell phone faceplates. It has opened the world's first online dealership and sells cars out of towering glass vending machines across Europe. And it has experimented with Bluetooth, offering smartphone and iPod integration before any other carmaker. All that - plus a sticker price starting at $13,000 - has helped the company snag the youngest average buyer of any global auto manufacturer, a snappy 37. And Smart's buyers are an enviably affluent bunch. Nearly half pay in full and in cash. Now Smart is making a play for the US market. Even as Smart cars surged across Europe and spread to 31 countries, conventional wisdom in the States dismissed the diminutive city car as the Speedo of the automotive world - fashionable abroad but way too small. Smart's solution: Make the micro a mini SUV. Based on the Fortwo design, the Smart SUV will debut in January at the Detroit Auto Show and arrive for sale in 2006 for about $20,000. But Smart fans don't have to wait until then, or travel to Europe, to see the cars up close. A highly unusual marketing plan will make the Smart hard to avoid. In addition to entering the SUV market, the company plans to introduce Americans to the Smart brand with the tiny Fortwo, wherever the creative class hangs out. Recently, Smart sponsored the Summer Play Festival on Broadway, an incubator for new dramatic talent. And this fall, Fortwos will buzz an art installation celebrating the restoration of JFK Airport's legendary, Eero Saarinen-designed Terminal Five and be a pace car for the New York City Marathon. All the while, a funny thing is happening. With a gallon of gas approaching latte prices, hybrids like the Prius stealing "it" car status from mammoth 4x4s, and the Mini making piles of money for BMW, Americans appear far readier for Smart than Smart executives anticipated. Not just for a special supersized version, but for the quirky two-seaters as well. After World War II, cheap microcars zipped all around Europe, many showing off spectacularly original design - three-wheeled chassis, bubble tops, outsize tail fins. But they were death traps firmly associated in the public mind with postwar depression. By the 1960s, they had all but disappeared, at least west of the Iron Curtain. When oil prices spiked a decade later and Europe's narrow city streets grew ever more crowded, Mercedes engineers recognized that, done right, microcars make a lot of sense. But two decades of prototypes failed to make them much safer, and the German automaker's project gradually lost momentum. Around that time, Swatch founder Nicolas Hayek had the idea to transform European cities with a line of tiny plastic cars - a kind of four-wheeled version of the Segway. He shopped the idea to carmakers across Europe, until finally Mercedes bosses saw in Hayek's vision their own stalled ambitions for a modern microcar and spun off a division to revisit the design challenge. As a startup, Smart was defiantly independent from its owner. Even uttering "Mercedes" at the office cost employees a 5-mark fine (about $3). In return, their older sibling rivals skewered Smart as Jugend forscht, or "youth research," after a German school science program. (The average age of Smart's employees is 31.) This initial rift helped make Smart distinct from Mercedes. The two have since grown closer, especially after Mercedes bought out Hayek's share of the company in 1998. Still, Smart's plant in eastern France, dubbed Smartville, is the most innovative in the industry. Nearly all the car's components are manufactured by partner firms with their own production lines at Smartville, then routed through mechanized arteries in preassembled chunks to Smart's final assembly line, where an entire Fortwo comes together in only 41¼2 hours (compared with more than 20 hours at a conventional car plant). And nobody would mistake Benz austerity for Smart style. Earlier this year, I met Smart's chief designer, 37-year-old Hartmut Sinkwitz, at the company's new headquarters outside Stuttgart. (Ironically, his last gig was designing some of Mercedes' biggest luxury sedans.) Sinkwitz, dressed in a skinny black suit, is tall and quiet with pale eyes and a dun crewcut. As we climb into an original production-model Fortwo parked in the company's lab amid a dozen prototypes, he tells me how Smart engineers finally got a microdesign to work. The bosses at Smart had called for a car only 8 feet long, Sinkwitz said. That would allow two of them to park in a standard spot, one behind the other - or three of them if they pulled in sideways. Yet inside, the Fortwo feels huge. A three-cylinder, 698-cc engine was moved from the front of previous micro prototypes to the back. The hood? Gone. Everything from the front bumper to the back tires became living space. --"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lawrocket 3 #2 October 8, 2004 Put it into a head on crash with a motorcycle for a test. I wonder which would be more survivable. Oh, this is one for "Unsafe at Any Speed" My wife is hotter than your wife. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wingnut 0 #3 October 8, 2004 <<<<<>>> Quote got a pretty good idea, watching a Smart-sponsored crash test with a Mercedes E-Class: The big sedan crumpled, and the Fortwo ricocheted. In a separate test, by the European New Car Assessment Program, a 40-mph impact with a concrete wall failed to dent the safety cell. They awarded the Smart a three-star crash rating - nothing like a Volvo but better than a Ford Escort, which weighs nearly half a ton more than the Fortwo. saw thes cars zipping allover germany.. wierd driving down the autobahn at 80mph and see one pass you...... if the gass milageis right and the comfort okay i'd think about buying one now......... i'llget a old truck to haul a camper with if i need to......withthe drivingi do i'd save a lot just in gas..... wonder what insurance wouldbe like onthses though...... have thought about a hybrid car though.. but righ nowi'mgetting 35-40 mpg in myhyundai elantra.... and that's with it half full of stuff..... ______________________________________ "i have no reader's digest version" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gravityizsexy 0 #4 October 8, 2004 That thing would get crushed!!! oh man..... "'Someday is not a day in my week'" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bob.dino 0 #5 October 8, 2004 Smart cars rock. They're cheap, ridiculously fuel efficient, and there's plenty of room inside for two people. Rigs n stuff might be an issue, but for city driving nothing beats them. And you can park nose-in in a parallel parking spot, so you only need half the space The roadster looks amazing, though I've not had the chance to drive it yet. Based on looks alone, seen side by side with a BMW Z3, I'd pick the Smart Roadster. More at http://www.thesmart.co.uk Just 'coz it don't have a 4l engine with 1950s technology you yanks'll turn your nose up at it . Just you wait 'til gas hits four bucks a gallon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ltdiver 3 #6 October 8, 2004 Reminds me of one of my childhood favorite rides at Disneyland. Autopia! Man, remember when all you wanted to do was be able to take that little car off the track and drive it home to play with!! ltdiver Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BlindBrick 0 #7 October 8, 2004 [reply got a pretty good idea, watching a Smart-sponsored crash test with a Mercedes E-Class: The big sedan crumpled, and the Fortwo ricocheted. That's generally considered a very bad thing The crumpling the E series experienced absorbs energy that woudl otherwise be transmitted ot the occupants. IF the ForTow bounced, that means most of the impact energy was transferred to the occupants. -Blind"If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Amazon 7 #8 October 8, 2004 Kewl.. an automotive dingy. I could put it in the back of the truck for emergencies.. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bob.dino 0 #9 October 8, 2004 Euro NCAP crash ratings for earlier models of the car: http://www.euroncap.com/content/safety_ratings/details.php?id1=1&id2=29 http://www.euroncap.com/content/safety_ratings/details.php?id1=1&id2=69 edit to make clicky Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nacmacfeegle 0 #10 October 8, 2004 Dave, I warned you about these things back in April. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1054679#1054679 But I do like Jeanne's suggestion of using them like a dinghy. Do they do them in maroon?-------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dianadiver 0 #11 October 8, 2004 Those cars are really cool. There were lots and lots of them in Rome when I went this spring. The Europeans are way ahead of us on saving gas. I guess they have to be with prices at 1 Euro/Liter. I think that car over there costs around 5000 Euro. Amazing, how by the time it gets here it's jumped up to $13,000. The other thing they had tons of in Italy was scooters. Some of them had full covers on them, so rain wouldn't be a problem. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ypelchat 0 #12 October 8, 2004 They're sold in Canada now! Yves. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DYEVOUT 0 #13 October 8, 2004 [cough]. . . GHEY. . . .[cough] I'm surprised at you, Dave. ----------------=8^)---------------------- "I think that was the wrong tennis court." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PhillyKev 0 #14 October 8, 2004 Quotenow if only you could put a lift kit on it Freakin' Texans always doing shit backward. You don't lift a primed for pimpin' ride like that! You slam it to the ground, biatch! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ChasingBlueSky 0 #15 October 8, 2004 I just saw one for the first time in Old Town on the North/Trendy side of Chicago last weekend. It was a delivery car for pizza._________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again..... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BlindBrick 0 #16 October 8, 2004 QuoteEuro NCAP crash ratings for earlier models of the car: http://www.euroncap.com/content/safety_ratings/details.php?id1=1&id2=29 http://www.euroncap.com/content/safety_ratings/details.php?id1=1&id2=69 yep, like I said, not good. -Blind edit to make clicky"If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TheAnvil 0 #17 October 8, 2004 I'd have plenty of legroom.... Vinny the Anvil Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL JACKASS POWER!!!!!! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ypelchat 0 #18 October 8, 2004 QuoteI'd have plenty of legroom.... You'd be surprised Vinny! I'm a big guy too. I've found that the Smart has more legroom than many cars on the market today. You can even bring your rig with you to the DZ! The trunk ( ?? ) is big enough for a rig. Yves. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
