{"id":2781,"date":"2008-02-27T03:03:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-27T08:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2008\/02\/smart-money\/"},"modified":"2010-12-30T12:00:58","modified_gmt":"2010-12-30T17:00:58","slug":"smart-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2008\/02\/smart-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Smart Money"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"smart<\/a><\/p>\n

It starts at $11,590. Yes, the smart car<\/a> (the makers prefer lower case) has arrived in America. Actually Roger Penske’s<\/a> Penske Automotive Group<\/a> has been taking reservations<\/a> for the smart for about a year; the first cars were delivered last month.<\/p>\n

I saw my first smarts<\/a> in Paris in 2001. A two-passenger urban automobile, the smart was powered by a three-cylinder 600 cc turbo gasoline engine or an 800 cc turbo diesel. Transmission was a 6-speed automanual. Just 98.4 inches long, the smart weighed 730 kg (1609 lb.). A prime attraction of the car, in addition to its economy of operation, was ease of parking, although some drivers are known to take liberties<\/a> with the rules. In some places they can park perpendicular to the curb<\/a>, which greatly increases density. Certainly with parallel parking two can park as easily as one<\/a>; comparison with a recent Citroën<\/a> puts it in scale. Smart was not the first urban concept; some years ago Renault built a working model of a similar car<\/a> whose rear wheels folded forward for parking.<\/p>\n

All smarts have a tridion chassis that encircles the passenger compartment, painted either black or silver. Body panels, which are removable, come in six colors, though white<\/a>, black<\/a> and silver<\/a> seem most popular. Some decorative touches<\/a> are occasionally seen, and the smart has been popular in promotional dress<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For a while there was a four-passenger<\/a> smart, the forfour<\/a>, a Mitsubishi-based design made in Holland. The two passenger car<\/a>, called “fortwo,” is made in Hambach, France<\/a>, by a division of Daimler AG (née DaimlerChrysler, née Daimler-Benz AG). It thus becomes the first French-built car sold in the US since Peugeot<\/a> left in 1992 (although the cars bear the VIN country code<\/a> of Germany).<\/p>\n

Canada<\/a> has had smart cars<\/a> since 2004, and they’ve proved quite popular. This one<\/a> was visiting Connecticut in 2006 while being tested by Consumer Reports. Canadians got a diesel version, not sold here. The US models have a 1-liter normally-aspirated Mitsubishi gasoline engine and a five-speed automanual gearbox.<\/p>\n

The other day I visited my local (50 miles) smart center<\/a>, as the dealerships are called. Part of the Inskip megamall<\/a> in Warwick, Rhode Island, it’s modestly hosted in a large Mercedes store<\/a>. Despite stories that smarts were zooming off the lots into buyers’ loving hands, I found seven<\/a> still in stock. It will be, no doubt, a cult car, not simply economical transportation. Smart money, as it happens, is not the cheapest sticker in town. For less, one can buy a Kia Rio<\/a>, Hyundai Accent<\/a> or Chevrolet Aveo<\/a> (think Daewoo<\/a>), all Korean four-seaters.<\/p>\n

First CarPorter to spot a street smart is VW guru<\/a> Steve Mierz, our Shoreline Scout<\/a>. He saw this one<\/a> in front of the post office in Stony Creek, Connecticut. Its smitten owner had already snapped up an appropriate vanity plate<\/a>. Need I say more?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It starts at $11,590. Yes, the smart car (the makers prefer lower case) has arrived in America. Actually Roger Penske’s Penske Automotive Group has been taking reservations for the smart for about a year; the first cars were delivered last month. I saw my first smarts in Paris in 2001. A two-passenger urban automobile, the….<\/span>
Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2781"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3293,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2781\/revisions\/3293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}