Teeny Smart car, generating big buzz, pulls into Beach dealership

Posted to: Auto News Business Virginia Beach

By Jennifer Jiggetts
The Virginian-Pilot
© March 8, 2008

VIRGINIA BEACH

Half the length of a Ford Crown Victoria and comfortable enough for a 6 -footer, some call the Smart ForTwo a "tennis shoe on wheels."

At 8 feet 8 inches long and 5 feet 1 inch wide and tall, that might be a good visual description.

The micro car is being introduced today at Checkered Flag's Smart dealership on Virginia Beach Boulevard. Nearly 300 orders already have been placed online, said Gary Gullickson, the store's brand manager. The car was unveiled about 10 years ago in Europe, where it has been a hit, Gullickson said. I t arrived in the United States in January.

The Mercedes-Benz-designed car gets about 41 mpg on the highway and 33 mpg in the city. Power comes from a rear-mounted, 1-liter, 3-cylinder gasoline engine that generates 71 horsepower.

Model prices range from $11,590 to $16,590. Steve Snyder, senior vice president for Checkered Flag Motor Car Co., calls the ForTwo "fun and cute."

"It's got a lot of personality," Snyder said. "We thought it would be a good fit for the market."

Not too smart

Submitted by jasona57192 on Mon, 03/10/2008 at 8:43 am.

11-16K for a Geo Metro with the back cut off? A fool and his money...

sounds traditional to me

Submitted by dfwdabull on Sun, 03/09/2008 at 7:45 am.

typical "stealership" scenerio: vulture like salesmen, alleged high demand resulting in waiting list resulting in inflated prices, ad nauseum....shall I continue..

car economy

Submitted by blackgold85 on Sun, 03/09/2008 at 2:51 am.

I have A 2002 Honda Insight AUTOMATIC that gets 55mpg city or highway.

With the Euro at $1.52, wait until you see the Price of those VW diesels.

NOT SMART-Only 2 seats and NOT great MPG

Submitted by smeernoff1477 on Sat, 03/08/2008 at 6:32 pm.

Smart thinkers look to the VW TDI GOLF or JETTA TDI-YES they are Diesels. Get 40-55 MPG much better than any smart car or Hybrid and even Scion XB, Ford Focus, Toyota Yaris or Chevy Aveo. Golf & Jetta VWs seat 4 or 5 and have been proven all over Europe and South America as dependable good handling well built great mpg cars even with diesel higher in cost than gasoline here. Advanced engineering Audi is the parent company of VW so the technology transfers. Who won Lemans with a Diesel race car? Yes Audi. Africa's Dakar off road race is a VW Toureg Diesel. 300 of you SMART buyers must really like them but in 2009 the real smart mpg miserly folks will be buying many thousands of VW TDI's. Just hope you don't cut off my Excursion the noise of the crushing metal sure will smart!