dgHotLava

not anymore...

http://travel.state.mt.us/tripplanne...ion/safety.htm

it is now 75/65 like most of the other states.

SatsumaxA

The smart car would be great for towing behind one of those monster RV travel homes. Park the RV , set up camp, take tour of area/ sight seeing!!!

LMO

You see them on the autobahn everywhere. They roll great in a crash (over and over), and burn really fast. Few survivors from a Smart Crash. Yeah, who needs American safety standards? Cut down on over population. Drive a Smart Car!

WagenMaster

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOWiupbFwgY

There's a list of crashes you can watch on that page too...I like #3, it reminds me of The Matrix

Heliotropic

can we say "death trap?"

Subcompact Culture

Actually, the Smarts have pretty good crash saftey ratings in Europe.

GetCaughtDead

subscribed. gotta check out some of those vids when I get home from work.

definitely couldn't make one my only car, but I'd totally rock one as a beater car. I wonder how they do in the winter!?

Taknitez

Hey'',

The distributor/importer in California has set up a few dealers all over the United States. They come into port in Cali, and then get all of the emissions, added safety to the bumpers and other things for legalizing them for U.S travel.

There are now two dealers here in North Carolina, one in Charlotte and one here in Raleigh. One pulled in right behind me at the Whole Foods store and I parked right next to him. Nice guy, professor at one of the colleges here and I asked him what it cost. ..........

"They start at.......$27,000"!!!!!!

$27,000???? "Good Night Gravy'''''''''


That is a lot of money for a glorified golf cart.......Cool as hell lookin' though!

LOL....a good buddy of mine saw it running down the road yesterday and I told him what it cost and he replied.....

"That does'nt sound so SMART". .......Lol....I kinda agreee''....

GetCaughtDead

yowza! how do they expect those turds to catch on with a price tag like that? so much for "taking aim at Yaris, other small cars".

BOXCAR

we saw several of them in Italy last summer and they look well put together and they could be parked anywhere, they didn't seem to have any trouble on the highways either. But if the price is that high they will not be for me.

JUMBO

You can park the ForTwo perpendicular to the sidewalk and not be sticking out in traffic. Saw it in Italy! Is was cool. Small, and pricey, but cool nonetheless.

GetCaughtDead

no way? awesome!

mfbenson

That college professor who paid $27K got raped. They sell for $16K in Canada, which is about $14000 US.

I'd be shocked if these are over $15000 by 2008.

http://www.mcuniverse.com/The_Smart_...da.1325.0.html

Macster

I'd rock a SMART as a city car... I saw a video of a GSX-R 1000 motor in the Fortwo...Damn cool!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...696419&q=smart

Taknitez

Yep, that college prof told me "they start around $27,000. Because they are not "official" imports by Daimler-Chrysler yet, but "special" imports by a private distributor in California, the private company has to put all of this safety equipment, emissions and other junk on them to get them ok'd for U.S roads. That tab adds an instant $10k to the bottom line.....

Yep"",,,that guy did get raped on trying to be the first one in the city to have one. Cool for him I guess, but just saw on ABC's Good Morning America that Daimler-Chysler has decided to "officially" bring them in next year with a price tag to U.S consumers in the $16k-$19k range.

So, pretty soon, he will be feeling like an idiot when all these other people have them on the roads and they paid thousands and thousands less than he did.

GetCaughtDead

lol, that's funny!

but $16-19k? that's still too much if you ask me. $14k, sure, maybe. but I wouldn't pay the same price for one of those as I paid for my tC... that just doesn't make any logical sense. plus, coming from d-c, you know you will be paying for every single option you might want on that thing.

WagenMaster

That is awesome! I love how they stuff it into a van at the end. I'd rock one too!

Subcompact Culture

I think for the Smart to be successful in the U.S., it'll have to get excellent milage, not like 45 mpg, but in the 60s, like the Canadian Smarts. We have seen that people are willing to pay a premium price for fuel efficancy with hybrids, and I think the same may hold true with the Smarts.

As much as I think Smarts are cool cars, I don't see the succeeding in the U.S. because of a combination of cost, size and practicality. I think for the first year or so they'll be the rage, kind of like Minis. However, the Mini, although small, is still a practical vehicle when the seats are folded down — instant space. No matter what you do to a Smart, short of installing a trailer hitch (which I'm sure you can't do), it doesn't have enough room in it to get "stuff" in, and Americans seem to have a lot of "stuff."

Hopefully I'll be wrong. My wife freaked when she heard they were coming to the U.S. We were in Germany in January/February, and she fell in love with them. Then again, I don't know if she could live with the lack of performance.

Stay tuned — this should be an interesting experiment.

GetCaughtDead

was that engine riding shotgun??? that thing is awesome. I wonder what the chances are of making it street legal?

illiST

Define Horrendous understeer. Because I've driven a SmartCar and it doesn't drive horrendously.

Just because you can't get the back end to come out, doesn't mean it's got massive amounts of understeer. It could be that perhaps they didn't want little smarties spinning out of control down Main Street. Although they are built VERY well. And have an integrated "safety cell".

The SmartCar is VERY fun to drive and fits just about anywhere. Most won't have an idea of just how small it is until they see it in person.

peace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju6t-...elated&search=