The biggest thing to potentially hit the United States' automotive market in a couple of years will be the smallest. Smart, a division of DaimlerChrysler located in Böblingen, Germany is a premium small car manufacturer, the company is part of the Mercedes Car Group.
Smart is a savvy company with enough common sense to know when to enter a market. They are in 30 markets worldwide but have yet to enter the United States because the US has not been kind to most smaller car brands with less power in the last two-three decades. Smart's answer to this is to make an SUV for their "forfour" series. The forfour will still possess the same DNA as the rest of the Smart car line...the tridion safety cell, the unusual design, the two colour and two material concept and "smart driving pleasure".
Couldn't you see this car becoming the next concept for street racers. Drop a high end motorcycle engine in it and a Nitrous Oxide tank and JAM. If I lived in a MAJOR city...I'd love it for parking ease alone.
... but: you can push a SMART, when it runs out of gas. Try that with a Hummer ...
Posted by: orangeguru | 10/21/2004 at 03:15 PM
Of course...getting hit by a Hummer in anything is likely to kill ya...
I wonder how long the transition, to smaller, will take with gas prices being so high
Posted by: a.brain | 10/18/2004 at 09:14 PM
While in the US all cars got bigger and bigger we had a very different trend in Europe: they got smaller. It's not just the SMART, but many other city-buzzers are around. The SMART has one of the biggest followings around here. On the other side: I don't wanna have an accident with a SMART against a Hummer ...
Posted by: orangeguru | 10/18/2004 at 06:06 PM