As you buy it...




How they look when crushed between two trucks...




You SUV-hatin' libs still want to put your wife or daughter in one? Still want to put anyone you love into one?

Even when there is a more common type of crash those miniature cars don't have enough material between bumper and driver to absorb much impact.

The firewall at work keeps me from seeing the pictures but I'm betting I know what they look like.

That said, I saw one of them pulling out of a gas station just in front of me and in a hurry turning left. He was far enough in front that I wasn't worried about him but a thought went through my mind. Hmmm, 1800 lb Smart vs a 6600 lb 3/4 ton truck . I'd be picking pieces of that thing out from underneath my truck for weeks.

Ken....

quote:

Originally posted by homebrewer:
As you buy it...

<image snipped, see above post>

How they look when crushed between two trucks...

<image snipped, see above>

You SUV-hatin' libs still want to put your wife or daughter in one? Still want to put anyone you love into one?

Homebrewer, I would have let this slide except you had to put the "SUV-hatin libs" thing in there. Instead, I am going to politely ask that you keep your political views expressed in the political forum instead of stinking up the rest of the site.

If you had bothered doing any research on this at all, you would have discovered that not only is the crushed vehicle in question NOT a smart car, it is in fact a Ford Escape SUV.

Here's a writeup of the accident, and snopes link:

Harvey, Louisiana, and involved a Ford Escape SUV, not (as is commonly reported) the smaller Smart Car. The impact did not occur dead center as apparently shown in the photograph: it was offset to the right, and thus the driver's side was not nearly as heavily damaged. The driver of the Ford survived the crash and has since been released from the hospital.

A reader who told us he was present at the scene of the accident said that (although it is not visible in this photograph) a second vehicle was between the Ford SUV and the dump truck at the time of the collision but was knocked onto the grass underneath the elevated roadway, and that any vehicle "short of another dump truck" would have suffered the same crumpled fate as the Ford did.



http://www.snopes.com/photos/accident/smallcar.asp

Thanks for the clarification Mark. What a piece of work homebrewer is.......geesh.....

I just did a little google image searching and noticed that a lot of "Smart Car" accident photos on there were of other makes and models. Most often they are of similar make, but are foreign cars, which is where the concept for smart cars was born.

IMO the Smart car makes a lot of sense for a fairly broad but limited segment of car users.....for instance urban or suburban dwellers in small to mid-size towns as a second car for the homemaker to drive around for groceries, mail, etc. Also as a second car for "to town" erands for country dwellers who could use secondary roads.

Conversely, if you lived in Manhattan, it might be a good choice if you chose to drive instead of taxi because the parking places are so limited and the speeds are so low in town. OTOH I personally would consider daily driving of one on some type of interstate to be a death wish.

quote:

Originally posted by Gatogordo:
IMO the Smart car makes a lot of sense for a fairly broad but limited segment of car users.....for instance urban or suburban dwellers in small to mid-size towns as a second car for the homemaker to drive around for groceries, mail, etc. Also as a second car for "to town" erands for country dwellers who could use secondary roads.

Conversely, if you lived in Manhattan, it might be a good choice if you chose to drive instead of taxi because the parking places are so limited and the speeds are so low in town. OTOH I personally would consider daily driving of one on some type of interstate to be a death wish.

Gato,

My gripe is not about the Smart Car, but about all the other truly cool cars this size that already exist and are not allowed here in the States. All these sporty high MPG cars exist right NOW, not 20 years down the road.

A google of the term "Kei Cars" can give a person a pretty good idea of what is already out there:



Suzuki Cappuccino:



Honda Beat:



Mazda AZ1:



Just use the same mindset you have when driving a motorcycle and never let yourself get sandwiched between 2 dump trucks. My biggest gripe with the smart car is how can something so tiny only get an EPA rating of 33 city/41 hwy. That is worse than what a geo metro got 17 years ago, and the metro had 4 seats.

I have to agree with you Mark. There are a lot of cool cars found in Europe today that will never make it into the US.

As for Smart Car MPG, it seems low for a vehicle of that size and weight. My 2006 Jetta TDI averages 46-48 in daily driving (mix of city/highway). In addition, I have a “real car” that can hold four people in comfort, five if they are friends.

yeep... good old goverment controls and regulations keeps the major car companys safe from having to keep up with the times and god help use if it's a good idea to have a safe small car. GM was going under and there idea of good maketing was to make bigger cars Obammmer motors will never get another dime from me

P.S. the germans are making a thre cylinder deisel car that gets 127 miles a gal. but we cant get them here not safe enough we need the goverment to protect use from making a dissision only the goverment can deside anything for us

I have to agree with you Mark. When I was stationed in Okinawa there were cars there that were smaller then the current Smart Car and that was in the the late 70's. I drove a Toyota Publica that was not that much bigger then a Smart and I got about 42 MPG. It was a 72 and even had a back seat that was reasonably useable.

Ken....

I see drivers/passengers of those dinky things as challenging Darwin's Theories of Evolution/Survival of the Fittest.

Pull out in front of my 7000lb Dodge 3/4 ton Cummins and see if your life flashes before your eyes or if those are the driving lights...

Rich
Big Truck

quote:

Pull out in front of my 7000lb Dodge 3/4 ton Cummins and see if your life flashes before your eyes or if those are the driving lights...

I should think that even if one Smart Car plowed head-on into another one, there will still be a few bad hair days for the pilots involved...

quote:

Originally posted by ddrhook:
P.S. the germans are making a thre cylinder deisel car that gets 127 miles a gal. but we cant get them here not safe enough we need the goverment to protect use from making a dissision only the goverment can deside anything for us

do you know which brand/model?

I bought a used 1985 Ford Excort diesel to drive the 2 1/2 hour round trip to work. It got 35 MPH opn a bad day. I drove it to see my out-of-state sister and got 50 MPG from pump to pump at highway speeds.

quote:

Originally posted by Steffen:

quote:

Originally posted by ddrhook:
P.S. the germans are making a thre cylinder deisel car that gets 127 miles a gal. but we cant get them here not safe enough we need the goverment to protect use from making a dissision only the goverment can deside anything for us

do you know which brand/model?

A google brought up the "Smart for 2" diesel getting an average of 74 mpg but some people have been able to average 126 mpg.

Here is a video that has a bit in common with this thread. It concerns the VW Polo, which was the replacement for the VW lupo which was the highest MPG production car at the time. 2 guys drove one around the world on 1,000 liters of fuel.

Anyway, they're apparently pretty tough little cars!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arfNofxBtfY

quote:

Originally posted by homebrewer:
I should think that even if one Smart Car plowed head-on into another one, there will still be a few bad hair days for the pilots involved...

Nice way to sidestep the "polluting the site with your BS" issue. Douchebag.