60 mph Smart car cleared for US market

[RickM]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6557549

Z, Is the Mercedes Smart car you've driven?

[kach22i]

ZAP last May signed an exclusive distribution contract with an importer, smart-automobile, for the rights to sell 15,000 of the cars a year in the United States.

Half of them are pre-sold, you would be lucky to get one.

I wonder how quick that car would be if fitted with a gas guzzelling 1,000 CC super-bike engine.

[RickM]

Hopefully one of my car dealer owning contacts will pick up on these.

[BigD9146gt]

Have you ever seen the dealerships for these in Munich Germany? Its pretty cool. Its a 5 ot 6 story building thats glass on all sides with an elevator up the center. Then they have 8 or so cars on each level all with a window. Its probably 25'x25', and then however tall they want it to be. I looks like a model car display, like the ones in The Sharper Image.

[VaSteve]

Oh goodie...I get to repost my photos!

[Stanley]

VaSteve- how did you get yours? I didn't think they were legal in the US until now. What kind of MPG have you been getting? Mind telling us your overall opinion of it?

[RickM]

Steve, must have missed the post with pics. What are your impressions?

[cowtown]

I see a whole new market for poly bushings and bump steer spacers!

[VaSteve]

Here's the original post....

If the Porsche gets you no attention, try this!

I didn't drive it all that long ~ 5 min, but I really stomped on it when I could. Not quick, but would serve of in a city enviornment. It had a tight turning radius (duh!) but felt a little top heavy . No AXing with this one. My brother said the milage was pretty good IIRC.

In my original post, I said I went to Lowe's with it. I bought a Ryoni circular saw with it own case. It pretty much filled up the luggage space.

[Stanley]

I'll have to see if they have any at the ZAP showroom and see what they look like in US spec. I live in Santa Rosa where their headquarters are. If not I'll just see one when I go to SF auto show.

[Neilk]

The design goal of the Smart was to carry two adults and two cases of bear.

As for being top heavy, after the initial introduction of the Smart, it had to be pulled from the market until Mercedes could retrofit the cars to prevent them from flipping too easily. A Scandinavian auto magazine was testing the car's collision avoidance ability (elk test) when they nearly flipped over.

[Z-man]

RickM: yes, that is the type of smart car I drove. It's called the 'smart fortwo' for obvious reasons. It's the same car that VASteve drove.

At this point, Mercedes-Benz, USA has decided to NOT import the smart fortwo - they will first import the smart formore (a mini SUV) and when the second generation fortwo comes out, then they plan on importing them to the USA.

Beware of the ZAP versions - first off - I am uncertain how they are able to pass USA crash tests - (I believe that's the main reason MBUSA isn't bringing in the smart to the US.) Second - they have absolutely no infastructure to suppor the smart car - who do they think will service them? Mercedes dealers don't have any smart parts in stock, and their mechanics aren't trained to service these cars.

As much as people want to be 'first on the block' to own unique cars, IMHO, it may be better to wait a couple of years until the car is officially available here, and there's an infastructure inplace to support them.

On a side note - a few years back, I remember hearing something at the NYC autoshow - Mercedes was displaying their G-Class "Glendelwagon" just prior to their official US introdcution. Years prior to the official US availability, the G-class was available through private vendors via the 'grey market.' Their average cost was nearly $150,000. There was a guy at the autoshow who looked absolutely miserable. When asked why? He stated that he had just purchased one of these $150K grey market G-Classes, only to discover that the official G-class would be offered at Mercedes dealers for about $85,000.

I suspect a similar issue will occur with the ZAP smarts.

Just my unofficial $0.42,
-Z-man.

[Z-man]

Originally posted by Neilk
The design goal of the Smart was to carry two adults and two cases of bear.

As for being top heavy, after the initial introduction of the Smart, it had to be pulled from the market until Mercedes could retrofit the cars to prevent them from flipping too easily. A Scandinavian auto magazine was testing the car's collision avoidance ability (elk test) when they nearly flipped over.

Actually, the 'elk incident' wasn't with a smart - it was with an A-class. The solution was to equip all A-classes with ESP - Mercedes speak for a sophistocated traction control system.

-Z.

[MFAFF]

You guys have been missing out.

The little Smarts are great fun.

City or country road they are a hoot. The Freeway is less entertaining, bad enough over here but I'd hate to be passed by a really big rig doing over ton.

But in toen they are just great.

The sutoboz is just a little tricky and it takes practice to finesse the throttle to get really smooth changes.

But hey, you cna't really get done for speeding in these. limited to 88mph max over here.

If I could justify actually owning a fourth car I'd love one....

[CJFusco]

whenever I am in the Old Country, I always look around and see these tiny SMART cars all over the place. Great on gas, take up hardly any parking space, etc..., and I wonder "why haven't these caught on in America yet?"

I guess the gas price situation is getting bad enough?

Actually I think that the tiny size was off-putting to American importers at first, so the Powers-that-Be took baby steps... first the Mini Cooper was allowed into the US, then the SMART. The Mini was like a "gateway drug."

I would love to see these little things displace SUVs as the new status trend.

[86 911]

I saw about 4 different ZAP's at the SF Auto Show at the Moscone center the other day. They were pretty neat, although the top Speed was about 85 MPH! By the way, is it just me, or do some of these ZAP's look like they should have been made by Scion? Here are some photos:

[MFAFF]

The yellow, black and red car are the 'Smartcars', the red one being the cabrio version.

The silver is something different....not certain what it is...

[CJFusco]

suzuki?

[86 911]

I believe the silver car is the ZAP Worldcar LUV.
ZAP's web address is: www.zapworld.com

Matt