I was looking at funny pictures on the internet and I kept running into pics of these cute little cars that are sweeping Europe and thought they were really neat looking and probably something that we are going to have to look more closely at here in the good old USA if gas keeps going up.
I found out they are called the “Smart Car” and they went on sale in this country in January of this year. This is what they look like:
Are they not the cutest little things? Now I know you are probably saying it’s a skateboard car, how can it be safe, etc., etc.. Well you can check it out on their website here to read all about it but trust me, I checked them out and these little suckers are cool!
Base model is $11,590 but you get a lot on that little car for the money. Plus they get 33 mpg in the city and 41 mpg highway. They are safety conscience with lots of airbags and steel reinforcements. Top speed is 90 mph which is pretty good for a 1 litter engine. I guess these have been popular for awhile in Europe because here are some pics of these babies in action.
And you can customize them!
This is a bit silly but hey, whatever floats your boat!
I believe the motorcylce is painted on the car
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All in all I think that this is something we are going to have to look more closely at even though Americans love their big cars. I am as guilty of this as the next person since we have a SUV because of the amount of stuff we haul around with us though we do have a smaller more gas efficient one.
I could handle getting 357 miles out of a tank of gas when you have a 8.7 gallon gas tank. If you don’t think they could have the extras that we are used to, well, wrong again. These have all the bells and whistles though for the top of the line with sun roof, heated seats, etc. you will pay over $16,000. So stop by their website and give it a look since I think you will be surprised at how much is packed in this small of a car. You may be looking at the new, better trend in automobiles to finally make it to America.
Posted by papercages on September 1, 2008 at 1:41 am
I have a neighbor that has one of these and like you I did a little research and they are impressive. Since they are two seaters I wondered about young kids, but they covered that too. The passenger seat registers the weight of the passenger and if under a certain weight ( I don’t remember how much) the air bag on that side is deactivate. Pretty neat! Neat pics!
Posted by delaney55 on September 1, 2008 at 1:54 am
We Americans need to get with it and soon. We had just bought our new SUV about 2-3 months before the gas prices started to go up. While we get decent mileage for this car, better than our old SUV, if we knew gas was going up like it has, we would have bought something else. A Smart Car would work for us as a 2nd car and we will have to seriously consider something like this by the time we buy another car.
Posted by Jenn Astle on September 1, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Must have leopard print smart car…do you think I could get one for free and promote it on my blog…is that what you’re doing? (haha)
Seriously though, I was thinking my next car might be a Prius, but if I can actually go some good for the environment while in animal print, I’m game.
Posted by delaney55 on September 1, 2008 at 9:18 pm
You can order your Smart Car for a $99 registration fee and you are guaranteed to get one of the first ones and you can customize it.
I wish I could get a free one or even a discounted one but I just thought they were cool and wanted to show people that there are nifty small cars out there.