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"Smart car"
Tiny "smart car" is making inroads against gas guzzlers
Saturday, March 29, 2008
The name is instantly appealing, and though an IQ test isn't required to own one, you immediately become brighter behind the wheel of a "smart" car.
These European imports are just starting to be sold on American soil, though some form or another has been driving around Europe forever, and smart (the lower case "s" is the way they like it) cars made it to Canada in 2004.
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You may have seen one around, but it's not likely: Before this year, the only smart cars in America were "gray market" imports brought over from Europe and modified to meet emissions and safety standards. Although this won't be one of the cars on display at this weekend's Dayton Auto Show, there will be plenty of other cutting edge models to peruse.
Today, "smart centers" are popping up all over the place, though only two sales centers have made it to Ohio — one in Bedford and one in Columbus.
The cars — three versions of the smart fortwo (pronounced sort of like it's spelled, "for two") — are coming from Germany, courtesy of Smart GmbH (part of DaimlerChrysler AG's Mercedes Car Group) and Roger Penske's United Auto Group, which partnered up to sell the cars in the United States. When the deal was announced back in 2006, smart enthusiasts jumped at the chance to reserve their car, registering online and paying $99.
"We delivered about 90 when they first became available Jan. 14," said Andrea Price, a sales rep for the Bedford smart dealership. "We have two here, used for demos, and all three models in the showroom for people to look at — and we get a lot of people in here looking."
Price said her dealership took orders for about 30 smart cars in February and a few more than that in March.
"We're getting great reviews — people love them," she said. "We expect sales will continue to rise."
They're cute and they get reasonably good gas mileage — that's a given. But how do the tiny cars do when faced with the worst possible scenario — a wreck?
Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, is on record as saying small cars are at a disadvantage when hit by bigger cars, thought the organization has yet to crash-test a smart car.
"The bottom line is, you can't repeal the laws of physics," Rader told "Kicking Tires," an automotive blog. "You can have all the airbags and all the safety features that currently exist, but you can never make a small car as safe as a bigger, heavier one."
Addressing that issue is the cool-sounding "Tridion Safety Cell," a reinforced steel shell that surrounds the driver and passenger, designed to keep that space intact while everything else absorbs any impact. The fortwo also comes equipped with front and side-impact airbags, antilock brakes and an electronic stability system.
Still, if blogs and message boards are to be believed, people aren't buying fortwos to feel safe. Or for the good mileage — the 33 mpg city, 41 highway rating isn't bad, but it's not the 60 miles a gallon some people seem to be expecting, and it's not that much better than a Toyota Yaris, for example (29 city, 36 highway), while not dependent on premium grade gas, like the smart car.
Nope. Smart cars are being bought by people who don't mind being noticed, stared at, stopped and asked about their ride. These are people who may or may not be parking-lot challenged, but who like the idea of sliding their ride in where others can't fit, and who eschew the bigger-is-better mentality of the Hummer/Expedition crowd.
Fortwo people like being stared at, and the cars give gawkers plenty of time, moving from zero to 60 mph in 12.8 seconds. That's slow. Sometimes nice, cute cars finish last — and sometimes, that's just fine.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2403.
or ldempsey@DaytonDailyNews.com.
