wolfwings

You're viewing

wolfwings's journal
Create a Dreamwidth Account Learn More

Reload page in style: site light

...it's only taken you what... a decade since uber-rich people have been importing your Smart's from Canada and Europe because they like them so much to realize there might be a market for them in the US?

Gods, what arrogant, stupid, greedy pricks. At least they cancelled their original plan, to bastardize the Smart name in the US by planning originally to create an SUV with the badging to try to cash in on the rumbling buzz around the line.

Hell, right now there are places selling (not just advertising, actively selling and getting buyers) for the Smart's at well over double the actual raw price, $30k and up for a car that sells in Canada fully loaded for under $18k. And people have been practically begging on hands and knees for DC to import the Smart's ever since they were first released.

And the best part to me? They're rear-wheel drive. And they'll have a turbo-diesel model available. I smell french-fry-powered burnouts coming in a couple years. =^.^=

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

elfs.livejournal.com

Yeah, but I can't watch the video associated with the article. MSNBC, for all its good things, assumes that there is no operating system at loose in the world other than Windows. There is no Linux, there is no OS-X. To watch the video, it says "click here for FREE software," and then it leads me down a load of twisty paths that end in "In order to use this software you must be running [at least the $149 edition of] Microsoft Windows XP or better."

I am running something better than XP, dammit. It's called Linux.

From:

shepherdwolf.livejournal.com

Okay, you don't even know me (the pinnacle of internet boredom is reading an LJ community's Friends List), but I have one word and two letters for anyone who might want a Smart car: SCION X A. O_O Three times the room, near-equivalent mileage, $12.5K USD and the added bonuses of, like, a front end. Hell, get yourself one now! We'll go cruise! :D

At least DC wasn't selling them in the US when Da Vince Code came out, so there wasn't a ridiculous surge in purchases, e.g. the Mini Cooper after The Italian Job.

Anyway, take are. Cute icon, btw. PEACE OUT, YO

From:

shepherdwolf.livejournal.com

Oh, and I agree that making ANY kind of utility vehicle with Smart badging would pretty much make the universe explode. I mean, unless GM actually DOES make a Hummer H5 on the Aveo frame, in which case we'll NEED a Smart SUV to balance it out!

From: (Anonymous)

...didn't even notice there WAS a video until you just now pointed it out. But I'm in the same boat so it's unlikely I could watch it either, especially since I'm running Athlon 64 so I can't easilly even just load the Windows software or codecs or whatever they're requiring.

From:

wolfwings.livejournal.com

Okay... you stated some counter-points to owning a Smart. Permission to rebuke?

The best Scion xA's are only rated for around 35. Even the worst estimates of the Smart's mpg are closer to 45-50, comperable territory to the old Civic CRX HF's. 35 compared to 45 is nowhere near equivilant. And that's comparing the petrol model, the turbo-diesel smarts have been marked for over 65mpg and owners regularly clock in over 75mpg in them, deep in the territory usually reserved for motorcycles but with a LOT more safety.

Seperately, if you don't routinely need three times the room, why get it? :-) Some of us don't need a car able to carry five people and their camping trip. And the Smart actually has plenty of cargo room for two people and their camping gear for comparison. Hell, the back opens like a pickup truck with a camper shell, not a classic hatchback, which also allows for more cargo room when it's needed.

And next, the Smart also doesn't need a huge front end. There's no engine there to deflect away from the passenger compartment primarilly. Remove the space the engine and transmission take up in the front of the xA, and the nose of the car would suddenly look very much like the Smart. And the engine is generally non-compressable, the crumple zones have to be designed to stop the engine from impacting into the passenger compartment.

And finally... the fourth paragraph of the linked-to article even states the cars will sell for under $15k, that's in the same price range as the xA. It's not going to be expensive.

As for cruising... well, my idea of cruising is more fun with a rear-wheel-drive car. Which also marks the Smart in my box of things I enjoy. :-) Glad we agree about what a heresy it would have been to have a Smart SUV as the only 'American' model though. =-.-= BTW, mind if I friend you? :-)

From:

wolfwings.livejournal.com

Grr... that was me. Forgot to log in.

From:

shepherdwolf.livejournal.com

You get friended just for being able to argue convincingly that a SCION XA is excessive. :D You are a master!

I imagine that if you don't need to carry five people and their camping trip, you REALLY don't need to carry SEVEN people and their washer/dryer set, so I can see why a SmartUV is not for you.

As for why get room that you don't need (yet): I'm of the mindset that if you can get extra features for about the same price, you might as well get it. Then again, it's that sort of "we might need this, so we'd better get it just in case" thinking that brought the H2 to our shopping malls, so perhaps you have a point. @_@ Just don't get your groceries at Costco and you should be fine.

You're absolutely right about the front end - I forget that most crumple-zone technology is put in place to keep the engine from exploding through the dashboard. So...um...where IS the engine in the Smart? o_0 Does it really run on AA batteries? 0=)

Then again, I'm all for unconventional vehicles (my idea of The Worse Car Evar is a gold Honda Civic), but I just can't get over the looks. And I drive an xB (aka xBox). I don't know if it's because the xB is the polar opposite of the smart (big and boxy meets tiny and spherical...now we should REALLY go cruising!) or the fact that I just drove it through Minnesota and Wisconsin, and from the looks people were giving me, you'd think I was tooling around in the #$&%ing Oscar Mayer Weinermobile. I had a guy actually drift over the center line because he was so befuddled by my car. -_-;;; Geez, people, think outside the pickup truck.

...this free-associational rambling brought to you by the letter SLEEP DEPRIVATION. ^^;;

Please feel free to friend; I shall do the same =D adios for now!

From:

wolfwings.livejournal.com

My thinking is that when I don't need large amounts of space or what-ever, I don't want to always be stuck carrying it around. :-) I'm all for possibilities, but for a daily commuter car and a car for driving around in by myself primarilly, I don't need a car able to carry five. =^.^= And there is three different SUV's on the property, two of which I can make use of whenever I need to. (Eight people and nine vehicles equals a LOT of variety.)

And the engine in the Smart is behind the front seats. Yes, you read that right, it's a mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive ultra-econo-car. With the engine under the level of the legs of the passengers. Meaning LOW center of gravity, and in an accident the bottom of the seats basically serves to punt the engine out of the way already if you get rear-ended.