Posted on 06/23/2008 12:50:55 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
As a regular combatant in the daily grand prix on our local roadways, I have received many one-fingered salutes from my fellow motorists, all well-deserved.
But from my first joyride in the new Smart car I brought home a month ago, the only salutes being flipped in my direction are a steady stream of thumbs-ups.
It's possible that some people are waving goodbye.
Enthusiasm for the new microcar from Mercedes appears to be exceeded only by the expectation that anybody crazy enough to drive one will soon be pulverized by a passing Peterbilt.
The question about the car I get most often, in fact, is whether it's even allowed on the highway. People seem to think it might be better suited to puttering around a golf course.
Like a lot of early adopters - there are about 10,000 Smart cars on the road nationwide, and San Jose and San Francisco are among the top 10 markets - I hated the car at first.
There had been some whiny reviews in automotive magazines suggesting the car accelerates like a wind-up toy, and like so many others who have grown accustomed to driving preposterously over-powered, high-performance cars, I wanted my mojo back.
But that's sort of the point, isn't it? Who needs a car that can go from 0 to 60 in six seconds?
Power and fuel efficiency are a zero-sum equation: You can't have more of one without less of the other.
Yet nobody, including me, is eager to concede our God-given right to treat every city street like a drag strip.
I liked the idea of owning a fuel-efficient Smart car, but did it really have to take 13 seconds to get up to freeway speed?
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Just passed along to add to the conversation.
Personally I’m not a fan of the Smart car as it seems to be overpriced for what it offers BEFORE even addressing the safety considerations.
Man, that Boxer quote is scary.
If you live in an urban environment only, I could see the point of a so called “Smart Car”, but if you live out in the wilds of West Texas, you’d probably die of boredom or be wiped off of the front of a pickup truck or combine in one of these “Smart Cars”.
Ever drive for hours without seeing a car on long, LONG roads in Texas, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, etc.?
80 MPH is SLOW in those places.
No way I am putting my family at risk in something like that.
Smart cars were designed for easy driving on the narrow streets of congested European cities. They were also designed to dodge certain Euorpean car taxes.
They weren’t designed to be incredibly fuel efficient.
Mercedes has a great scam going.
Me.
And when I get my Vortech put in there we should have that down to around 4.25.
Instead of rolling fly and looking phat your knees are up to your chest and your posse's getting laughed at.
Previously I have owned Porsches and BMW's (7 of them). My advice to anyone thinking of a Mini...."don't take a test drive unless you got the money in the bank"!
Careful there, you're insulting a classic. Besides, my 4-year-old can get his Tonka Dump Truck up to freeway speed in 9.2 seconds (of course, his was the supercharged model)...
I think they did well for safety with the size limitation of the design. There was no room left for crush zones so they made it fairly crush resistant.
Safer than a motorcycle (once in the crash, the motorcycle would do better avoiding the crash probably) but less safe than anything my family drives.
It seems to me as well there are better choices for economics as well as safety.
I remember seeing cars like this all the time in the far east back in the late 60s. They were all two cylinder bangers and could drive all day and then some on a gallon of mix...
"The big question from consumers is, ‘How safe is it?'", says Institute president Adrian Lund. "All things being equal in safety, bigger and heavier is always better. But among the smallest cars, the engineers of the Smart did their homework and designed a high level of safety into a very small package."In other words, those ratings tell you NOTHING about relative safety of different classes of vehicle. You'd have to get one of my old expert witnesses to clue you in on that question by interpreting the raw data.The Institute's test results generally demonstrate how well vehicles stack up against others of similar size and weight. Frontal ratings can't be compared across weight classes, meaning a small car that earns a good rating isn't safer than a large car that's rated less than good.
That's the dirty little secret of the NIHS ratings.
Does any one remember the Isetta? When I was in highschool I was riding my horse after school and I rode into an Isetta dealership. The salesman kept my horse while I took a test drive. I didn't want one then and I don't want one now.
Yes, in a wreck you would suffer, but the same is true if riding a motorcycle, yet people do not seem to be outspoken against that? I wonder why that is?
Or at least a spatula in the trunk for scraping the remains from the pavement. :)
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