How Many Smart 450s In Canada?

[TFM]

I'm betting June will be weak all accross the board due to the 1% GST reduction July 1st.

1% when dealing with $20,000 is no small change.

[MikeT]

Vancouver Island update: there are now approximately 750 smart fortwos on the road on Vancouver Island. That is 11% of ALL smart cars that have been sold in Canada to date. 464 of these cars on Vancouver Island have been spotted (62%).

It's mind-boggling really, how this island with its 750,000 people, have taken to smart. Three Point Motors remains the leading smart dealer in Canada, by a large margin.

Regarding the total number of smarts in Canada, I expect that this fall we should see about 500 more cars arriving from Europe in time for the last two months of 2006, and then a further 2000-2500 cars (still 2006 models, cdi) to bridge the gap to the 2008 model, coming in September 2007. If these expectations are borne out, the total number of first generation smarts in Canada will be 11,000 to 11,500.

These cars that are expected have already been built, and are being stored in Germany.

[Malcolm]

Since its been a month since the last update, any new numbers available for Canadian smart sales?

[pulsating]

How are those August numbers lookin'?

[MikeT]

288 in August.

[Malcolm]

Apparently there is some variation between the numbers posted here by Mike T. and today's MB press release...

The smart brand maintained strong momentum in September with deliveries of

192 units, which resulted in year-to-date volume of 2,667 units.

Personally, I'm dubious that '06 sales will match the '05 numbers (4200 units) at this point, although Mike might have a better explanation of the disparity. 10,000 smarts in Canada seems unlikely by Christmas!

[MikeT]

Check this thread out; I posted the September sales figures an hour before you posted the info from Mercedes' press release. I guess a 40+% drop from September 2005 is not cause for alarm.... I am not alarmed....but it doesn't smack of good momentum.

2006 will certainly not match 2005, in which exactly 4080 fortwo units were sold. That was fairly evident months ago. It looks as though something around 3500 will be the total for this year....which is not bad, but MINI is nipping at smart's heels.

We have 8545 smarts in Canada at this exact moment, of which about 740 remain unsold. That should last through mid-December, but shipments will certainly be resuming in late November.

The 10,000 figure I have been projecting for some time is the grand total of current model smarts that will be in Canada when all is said and done. I will predict over 11,000, just to be safe.

[smartzuuk]

That's a goodie number...

[smartzuuk]

So where are we at now, and will we really see these 'extra cars'?I have heard that we are done; we have what we have. About 100 unsold cars is it.

[MikeT]

Well, in 2006, only 3023 smarts were sold, compared to 4080 in 2005. Added to late 2004 sales of 915 cars, that puts us up to 8018 units on the road as of three days ago.Comparing that to cars in the country, there will be a total of 8780 smarts in Canada in a week or so, when the Toronto ship arrives with 48 more cars. So there are over 760 unsold smarts in Canada right now.I was told last summer that there were up to 2000 cars pre-built in Europe, waiting to be shipped over here as demand warrants. Demand right now is very low (under 80 cars a month, pretty dire really), so when (or whether) they will all arrive is unknown to me.I would guess now that we'll top 9000 cars of the first generation, and maybe even 10,000, assuming that all of the ones they are storing in Europe with the CDN mods are actually brought over here. But they might sit on them and sell them in Europe as a sort of Euro-CDN chic model, if sales continue to struggle in Canada. That's what Renault did in 1988 with the few hundred Alpine-Renault V6 Turbo GT cars they had built to US specifications, for 1988 introduction. When they pulled the plug in the USA, these cars were mildly converted to Euro spec and sold as the V6 Le Mans GT......It was a sweet car BTW, and would have changed peoples' perception of Renault over here, but that is another sad story.At sales of say 80 smart cars a month, they'll not need any more fortwo 450s until the new model arrives.....but I expect/hope that sales get back up over 200 a month soon. Time for a "Friends and family" price event?

[Malcolm]

I rather like the exclusivity implied by sales of under 10,000 in Canada (current model). Adds cachet.But then, we also own a 2005 Saab 92x Aero, one of less than 450 sold here that year. Since it is being discontinued in 2007, there will probably be less than a thousand of them here in Canada.Makes the smart look wildly popular!

[smart142]

Malcolm, is it expensive to get the Saab serviced?

[MikeT]

I don't know about servicing costs, but the depreciation is ferocious.

[TFM]

Time for a "Friends and family" price event?

How about they actually do some advertising...

[MikeT]

Yep, word of mouth isn't cutting it anymore, despite our best efforts.

[Hammer Smart]

Who's running the smart show.Frankly I don't see a whole lot of MB advertising never mind Smart.

[spinner]

If smart is regarded as a fashion and a trifle in most of its markets, then it doesn't take long for it to go out of style.MINI shot up 129% while smart sank -78% in December. January will be better, or not.

[Malcolm]

The first year of service for the Saab 92x was horribly expensive; not that the prices were out-of-line, but the dealership (Midtown Saab / Saturn) was stunningly incompetent. Every service call was a 'come-back' (we had to go back a 2nd time to get the job finished properly!), and one was a 3-timer!! They even delivered the car without completing a proper pre-delivery inspection (the high-mount brake-light wasn't working...). But those inconveniences were just due to a bad dealership with poor staff, not to any inherent problems with the car itself.Now we have the car serviced at our old Subaru dealership, where 15 years of previous relationships has come back into play, and we have no further complaints - or comebacks!Yeah, the initial depreciation on the car would have been brutal, but I was able to buy the car for such a good price that we offset most of that 'paper' loss right up-front. We'll keep the car for 10 to 12 years, so depreciation isn't really an issue for us. Also, the 92x Aero (which we have) is developing a small cult following amongst motorsport enthusiasts, since it is really a Subaru WRX without the 'boy-racer' looks.Which keeps the insurance rates down, the police at bay, and the car-thieves confused. All of which I like - a lot.

[Jillian]

Hey guys -Any updates on the number of smarts hanging around in Canada lately?All this talk of no commercials or adversiting makes me wonder how the market it.

[MikeT]

There are 9603 cars in the country; about 1400 of which are not sold.

[Speedie]

TPM has a whack of them on the lot - at least 20 or so.Cheers,Cameron

[messerschmitt owner]

send them to the UK then - we've almost no smarts at all for sale in dealers here. My local dealer had no noew vehicles and only two fortwos and one brabus roadster for sale secondhand!

[MikeT]

There have been no smarts sent to Canada since the shipment no. 707....we're still monitoring to see if there will be any stragglers, but I suspect we've got the last of the model 450s.

[Malcolm]

Given the rebates (provincial and federal), now may be the best time to buy a smart.Just do it... the current in-Canada inventory will do nothing but decline, so your choices are better the sooner you act!

[MikeT]

Shipment 712 has no smarts either, but does have over 400 Benzes on it.Yep, get your diesel smart while they're hot!