Posted on 02/18/2005 7:45:39 AM PST by add925
IT'S Smart but it's certainly not clever, and it has cost Daimler-Chrysler more than e2bn (£1.4bn) since its launch. Now the question is: how much longer will the carmaker continue to underwrite the underperforming Smart car?
Heralded as the future of urban personal transport when it was launched in 1998, the car was environmentally friendly, ergonomically appealing and space efficient.
But DaimlerChrysler's unique minicar has been revealed in the German media as a costly failure with 2004 losses of about e600m, making the overall dent in its creator's pocket up to e2bn.
(Excerpt) Read more at thisislondon.co.uk ...
Dropping rocks off bridges is becoming a big juvenile delinquent problem in Germany. I remember one lady was killed when some kids dropped a rock through her windshield. What was horrible for public relations was the thy were US Army servicemember kids.
Answer: Its not from an evil American car company.
I think for American driving the "smart" only makes sense if it's so cheap to own and operate that most people could afford one as a second car.
I would use this as a daily drive to work car, and keep my other car for long trips, shopping, double dates etc., but not if the "smart" cost $10000+ to buy and also doubled my annual licensing and insurance costs.
When you go to blockbuster video you would hagve trouble fitting a videotap in the glove compartment of that thing.
It depends on what you get. IIRC, around 60 for gas and 80 for diesel.
I hadn't seen that one before.
Where is the one with the Clowns climbing out and heading to the DNC?
I still believe that the Smart Car looks like a Monster Garage tricked out golf cart.
Hey, HEY!!! Those little GooGooMobiles were WONDERFUL cars . . . . . . if you like cars that have only 1 door, seating for 12 "little people" or two (extremely uncomfortable) regular sized adults with cargo room for a bag of groceries.
Acceleration was from 0-60 sometime within your life and fuel efficiency was exceptional!! 1 gallon of gas to every 1,000 miles. Replacement tires were plentiful, you could use anything from a doughnut to one of those rubber rings people with sore butts sit on.
And, STYLISH!!?? Well, the picture speaks for itself.
Yeah!
It's a Crosley!
Powell Crosley invented the "shelf-in-the-door" refrigerator, and also manufactured radios.
He owned a chain of appliance stores, and designed the Crosley so it would fit through the doors of the stores.
The first Crosleys were built in 1939, and had a four cylinder engine made of brazed sheet copper (the COBRA engine). These engines were terrible in the cars, but the U.S. Navy bought a bunch of them to power generators aboard ships.
After the war, Crosleys sold like hotcakes.
The last Crosley came off the assembly line in 1952, I think.
Sssshhh! Are you crazy?? Could you imagine the fallout if you popped their insulation bubble like that?? Chaos would follow! Mass enviro-whacks would committ suicide from the guilt of harming the planet!
....
On second thought, go ahead.
I love the concept and would definitely drive one if they were available here and reasonably priced. They're not (yet) and they're not. There are already hundreds of them warehoused in California waiting for government approval to begin selling them. The problem is the price. A loaded one is gonna sell for >$20,000. That's too much. A loaded Mini-Cooper can be had for about the same price and is obviously a more substantive product IMO. In fact, lots of well-equipped traditional-sized cars can be had for the same dollars. This thing should be far cheaper to manufacture, with its plastic body panels, etc., and this fact should be reflected in the selling price.
JM.02
MM
The entire car is an egg-like steel safety shell to protect the passengers. The engine and other hardware is below the level of the passengers. It's designed so that even the wheels are part of the energy-absorbing crush zones. In a test I saw a hard frontal collision cause damage to the rear of the car (transferring energy around the passenger compartment). There's more, but let's just say that a lot of engineering went into making this a safe car, as safe as most larger compact cars.
You'd have to wonder about the rate of survival if one ever got into a wreck. It'd be crushed like a tin can.
Ya would look like Steve Urkle driving that. Someone around here has one... stupidest looking thing on the road.
When I was in Europe, I joked I was buying one and getting it back to the USA by checking it as luggage.
It is a fun car for urban driving. It is very nimble and fun to drive. Distances between places to have fun or see are not far in Europe. Here, the Smart Car would just be a toy for town. I could see it as a retirement community car.
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