My smart car.  Is in.  My driveway.

It happened.

My perception of the universe is officially upside down.

I don’t even know how to think about this.  It’s not sunk in.

I own and drive a smart.

Cool.

• I can’t be the sole person on the title and registration for about 5 weeks.
• There just haven’t been any cars available.
• It was possible that there would be a tax problem: if my name is on the title, I may be responsible for half the tax on the guy’s prize winnings (keep in mind, the guy’s wife won the car).
• A meteor might fall on the smart dealer and destroy it and all the cars.

You just never know.

Anyway, I’m freaking out a little about the fact that this might actually actually happen. 

Here’s the latest email from the guy I’m buying the car from:

“Deb…Just spoke w the car peeps. They have it in shop prepping for release.  How about 6pm Sunday or Monday???  Bring insurance info as we’ll both be on title. No tax probs.  You could drive it to school Monday!!!”

I could…drive it to school Monday?  What?  Wait.  I…uh…that’s two days from now.  Monday?  Really?  Uhhh…this is not fitting in to my pessimistic never-will-happen worldview.  Everything I know and assume about the universe might not be true!  What next?  The war in Iraq will end?  There will be a health care system that works?  People will see the futility in driving SUVs?

I think I need to go back to bed.

Then later I saw a yellow smartie on the road, and it made me smile.

WAHOO!!!

Stay tuned…we’ll see when I actually get behind that wheel.

I see little smarties on the road every couple of days.  They’re actually the same few people I see over and over again.  I wonder just how many smarts drive around Portland and Beaverton every day!  I will somehow find out and let you know.  I’m going to start  my local smart research with the Pacific Northwest Region group on the smart Car of America Forum.  ‘Til I know anything, here’s some random PNW news for you and my thoughts about it.

Here’s something: apparently smart doesn’t sell to Alaska.  Well, regardless of the inconvenience that causes, it sounds like the reasoning is pretty solid.  Since there are no dealerships there, they can’t guarantee that maintenance & repairs will be done by authroized technicians.  Huh.  The fine salesman at the smart dealer here did tell me that work really should be done there at the dealer, and if it couldn’t, a distant second for quality service would be the folks at the Mercedes dealer who they trained to work on smarts.  I guess the solution for Alaska is for there to be a smart dealer there.  Duh.  Wow!  I just saw a comment on that forum post from who I believe to be the general manager at the smart dealer here in Portland!  She’s quite cool; no wonder she’s on that forum.

Oooh – here’s something for the Debbie Downers out there who talk about how unsafe these cars are:

“I saw today that the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety did simulated roll over tests of 6 small cars.  The highest rated was the Smart For Two.”  A comment on that:  “in germany the 450s and 451s are known as the “ball”, cause they seem to roll away from accidents.”  If you care to see more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8iSZB_m36Y&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Esmartcarofamerica%2Ecom%2Fforums%2Ff45%2Froll%2Dover%2Dsurvivability%2D25374%2F&feature=player_embedded

And for your delight, here’s another excellent picture, this time showing just how smart the cops are in whatever lucky country this happens to be:

I’m still waiting for word on my own.  It’s the 4th of September.  I feel like a kid two weeks before Christmas.

*SIGH!*

To kill the time, I’ve been looking for funny/clever pictures that feature the smart.  Here are some for your delight:

 (This is at one of the dealers.  It’s supposed to look like a vending machine.  If only it were that easy!)

Sadly, that’s all for now.

 Why do you think they get so indignant?  I wonder if it threatens their idea of “car” and therefore threatens their masculinity. Like, “I base my idea of myself of a man partially on my vehicle.  If THAT’S a vehicle, what does it mean for me?”  I think I’ll be able to get away with it better because I’m a woman; I can’t imagine what the reaction will be to my husband driving one.  No offense to anyone, but I think the only way some men will be able to handle that scene is to convince themselves that my husband is gay.

Maybe they’d like it more if it looked like this?

I like to think that people are just jealous, but it’s…I guess…cooler for them to be mad than jealous.  Yeah, that’s what I like to think.

(I had to edit this in a couple days later – just weird.  This was actually with a Facebook status update that said…”is boxing in the Smart Car parked in his spot. Not so smart now are you!? Mr. Smarty smart car!”

It’s a bit beside the point, but how is a piece of public road on a public curb THAT GUY’S space?

I don’t know of any other car that angers people quite so much as the smart (wait, I guess I get pretty enraged about Hummers).  I really don’t get it.  I have read all kinds of rants about smarts, and I’m baffled by those that make no sense.  Read this rant:

“Only stupid-ass liberal elitist schmucks  would ever buy a ‘smart car’.  Smart cars are as “smart” as… carbon taxes, unilateral disarmament,… Obamacare, closing Gitmo, gun control, raising taxes — well, you get the idea and see the pattern, right!?!?”

OK, so I’m a stupid-ass liberal elitist schmuck.  And proud of it!

In case you’ve always wondered, smart was originally a joint venture between Mercedes and Swatch – remember the cool plastic banded watches everyone loved in the 80s with all the funky graphics? Yep, them.  In fact, they didn’t name the car “smart” because it was such an intelligent choice (although it is), it’s a combination of the words “Swatch Mercedes Art”.

  +  =

Cool, huh?  The original plan was to make a little innovative car that would be affordable for young people, much like the Citroen 2CV of the 1940s.

smart’s cool symbol is a “c” with an arrow.  The “c” is for “compact” and the arrow symbolizes forward thinking.  AND, it was designed to pull straight in to a parallel parking space.  I’m pretty excited about that.

The smart’s world premiere was in 1997 and was sold in several European countries in 1998.  One year before I fell in love with them in Rome.  Sadly, the Swatch/Mercedes partnership was not a match made in auto heaven, and Swatch eventually pulled out.  It wasn’t until 2004 that they came to North America, and that was to Canada.  Those Canadians get all the good stuff!  It was between 2004 and 2008 that folks from the US could get them “gray market”.  The market got bleached in 2008 when smart was launched in the US (with a bigger engine, of course.  Sigh.).  And now it’s 2009, and I get my very own.

There are other, yes, even cooler versions of the smart that we don’t get here.  There are diesels, 4 seaters and ones with smaller engines (700 cc!) existing out there somewhere.  AND, the first electric versions are being released in the UK! 

I am very happy to be getting my own, even though it’s a 1 litre, fully gas, 2 seated thing.  It’s going to be a delightful thing!

(thanks, Wikipedia, for all the good info!)

Well, actually, we checked this out.  We had Blake with us the first time we went to the dealer, and we put him in the hatchback.  He fit…sort of.  No worries, I can fold the passenger’s seat down, and he can lay comfortably next to me!  Like this dog ever lays down in the car.  Anyway, problem solved!  At least this one.

Our ideal smart was the pure model (simplicity, cost) in white with no power anything and no radio, only air conditioning.  Here’s our thinking about this…Power stuff: is more complexity and more stuff to break.  Radio… from what I’ve read, the reception isn’t great outside of the city.  Air conditioning…well, we don’t live in a city that gets hot very often, but when it does get hot, it’s just not pleasant.  And I’ve NEVER had a car of my own with A/C, so at 37 years old, I think I finally deserve it. 

I am getting white!  But, as things are not always ideal, and as I want a smart car NOW, I am getting one with power windows.  It’s a concession I’m willing to make so I don’t have to wait around for one to appear without.  It’s going to be 3 or so more weeks as it is before I get it.  These things are selling off the boat!  The upside is that, although I wasn’t planning on this upgrade (or paying for it), I get the silver tridion cell instead of black.  It’s going to be worth it, I think.  It’s purty.

It feels good to have this part of the car buying process over.  There are still some unanswered questions that come from doing a strange deal like this (title?  registration?), but I’m willing to continue working on those.  I just keep picturing the bitty 8 foot 10 inch car parked however I want it to be parked in my driveway, and I know the reward will be well worth it.

White with black

White w/ silver