Smart Car vs. Suburban

[bjarvis]

Last May, while in Vancouver with kent4str, tdjohsn and rlegters, I saw a Smart Car for the first time. It's an amazingly compact bit of work. While I wasn't able to sit in it to judge fully, it struck me as being fairly roomy inside, at least more than I'd expect for such a tiny machine. I took some photos at the time, but the lighting in the garage sucked and I didn't have anything to show scale.

On Sunday, that changed.

As kent4str, cuyahogarvr, Woody and I left the Air & Space Museum in Dulles, VA, we saw another Smart Car, this one in the parking lot during daylight adjacent to a Suburban! What a comparison of scale!

	Smart Car vs. Suburban 01
	Smart Car vs. Suburban 02
	Smart Car vs. Suburban 03
	Smart Car vs. Suburban 05

I'm not sure I'd want to own one --kent4str probably wouldn't fit and there's no room for cargo-- but it's kinda neat.

Comments

[pectopah.livejournal.com]

There are quite a few of these in Montreal. For city driving, they are really good and they have diesel ones, so they probably use very little fuel. I understand that they are more crashworthy than they look (being designed by Mercedes-Benz and all..) I would not want one in the US, though, too many much larger vehicles.

The advantage to having a motorhead husband ...

[allanh.livejournal.com]

Randy tells me that the Smart Car was designed to be small enough to fit TWO of them into a standard parking space on a street ... at a 90 degree angle to "regular" size parallel parked cars. Mercedes Benz has been waffling on bringing the things into the U.S., because they're afraid of damaging their luxury cachet/reputation by being perceived as an "economy" car maker.

Considering that the Smart is evidently more than reasonably reliable, cheap, and gets very high mileage (nearly as good as a hybrid), it's an otherwise quite logical choice of vehicle.

[ciddyguy.livejournal.com]

I've seen the pics of these and I think they are cool in concept.

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

You see SmartCars(tm) all the time in Toronto. There's even a win-a-SmartCar contest being run by Smarties(tm), the multi-coloured chocolate button candy [whose candy-ecological niche is filled by M&Ms(tm) in the US]. Cute efficient cars AND chocolate, it's a winning combination.

I don't own a car, and unfortunately Mr Avis doesn't have any SmartCars in its fleet in Trawna (they do carry the Toyota Echo(?) - which is sorta like a SmartCar that grew a back seat). But I may have to go to the brand X rental folk and try a SmartCar soon. Brad-my-cute-gay-banker, who wants to own one, says they look like a liquorice-allsort-on-wheels, and it's true. and they're great.

(weren't you - brian - the one justifying your household's purchase of a SoccerMomMobile not long ago? Is the pendulum swinging?)