alittlesmart

The original smart is a hard act to follow.... after seeing pictures & specs on the second generation car (451) I decided to get a 450 and have no regrets. Besides after the new one is out over here and I get behind the wheel of one I can always get another (after my car loan is finished on Mies). Then we could be a 2 smart family!

I wish I was going too! Attached is a screen snapshot of smartville, I looked it up on Google Earth. The image resolution isn't good enough to pick out smarts from the pixels, hee, hee hee! Not terribly far from the Nurburgring, btw. After you get back I hope you give us a full report! Cheers, Robert

Wow your dedication is gr8. Before cars started coming to Canada I had thought about taking one apart in Europe and shipping as parts to be reasembled and then registering it at a homebuilt (love the kitchen part) G&K saved my marriage. 8 - )

When I first posted about the article I didn't know that it was on the front page with a 5" by 10" tall color picture (the small one on the web site). Must have been a slow day for news but pretty exciting to see Mies smiling! The article concluded on the back page with three more pictures, one of Mies nose to nose with my wife's F250 turbo diesel P/U (felt really scary pulling the car forward). One of the other pictures was of me showing how the roof rails are removed, and the third picture was of some smart literature on the kitchen table.

I was passing a slower car and was tagged at 77 mph...... mysterious 60 mph sign (visible to in state-er's only perhaps) I thought I was still in a 65 zone. In WA and MT it is legal to exceed the speed limit by 10 mph while passing but Idaho has no such law. 8 - (

The Ravalli Republic wrote an article about smarts and Mies in particular. Enjoy! http://www.ravallirepublic.com/

I think ex F1 Niki Lauda's rental company Lauda Motion rents smarts but only at bigger airports as far as I can tell from their website.... https://www.laudamotion.com/home.do I too have done the French car purchase/drive/sell back scheme, worked great for me. I had a turbo diesel Peugeot 309. Drove from Amsterdam, across Spain and dropped the car off in Paris. For longer journeys (3 weeks min.?) it is the best way to go by car.

Hi all, I have enjoyed reading the posts about car names. I have named mine Mies van der Road, in honor of the architect Mies van der Rohe who pronounced that "less is more" which seems to describe the smart! I am an architect also.

Thank you all for your nice replies and greetings, it is great knowing there is such an interesting community of smartaholics out there......

rrucke, The price range you quoted is consistent with what I have seen. Cabrio's are demanding a premium over coupes, my local dealer said that G&K is allocating the convertibles at a ratio of 2 cabrios per 8 coupes purchased. I saw mostly coupes in the sea o smarts @ G&K. I am still mulling over license plate combinations and the unofficial name is Max Nano. After staring at the 1:87 scale models in my smart tower on my desk I still can't believe I have a 1:1 scale one outside!

No, my wife went out to chat with them (she is better looking than me). And yes, I liked the yellow and silver, wished I had taken the time to get some more pictures of the yellow car but I was too excited. Attached is another picture @ G&K, I think they said they had 300 smarts there.

Hello Everyone, long time lurker to the forum, but with the recent purchase of my Phat Red 2005 Passion Cabrio (G&K conversion) I thought I should come out of the shadows. I picked up my baby at G&K in California (purchased through Eco-Auto in Bozeman MT, Ron was great to do business with, BTW). I then drove home to Montana via the Pacific Coast Highway and 101 to San Francisco, across I-80 to US 93 and then to home. What a great and memorable trip. Upon arriving home I took my wife out to dinner and while we were in the restaurant the local police surrounded my car (three squad cars & seven officers). They were just checking out the first smart in Hamilton, MT, but I just wished we had it on film. It was quite a sight with the red & blue lights flashing.