The other day at lunch, a coworker (also a hummer owner) and I were driving down Mound Rd by the Tech Center and saw the STUPIDEST thing -- one of those "oxymoron" cars....a so-called smartcar. It was soooooo tiny and funny looking. The best thing was that his vanity plate said EINSTIEN (can't remember the exact spelling he used). I think Einstien would have been smart enough to drive something bigger.

I can't believe people risk their safety to get a few extra miles per gallon. Wonder what his gas mileage is when he is stuck in the snow???

 

from wht i have been told they 40 mpg at 70mph
top speed 91mph
mi grandparent has one on order

 

I see them driving down the highway being BLOWN all over the PLACE!!

Luckily if it hits me, it'd be like a bug on the windshield!!

 

What happens if one of those gets in an accident. Instead of an air bag does a body bag come out?It doesn't look like you could survive in one of those.

 

I saw a crash test on youtube about one of those...the whole front end is just gone and basically your legs would be gone in a front end accident going like 50 or 60 I think it was. No thanks, I will take my H3 even if I am spending a little more in gas ANY day.

 

You can watch the crash test on YouTube. The one's I have seen show it do very well. The entire cabin was untouched going 45 to 50. Maybe after a certain speed the entire thing just gets crushed.

But c'mon, let's get back to reality. Who in this day and age drives anywhere under 65 on any highway or expressway in the country? Maybe 1% of drivers, if that. You can't take a life back once it's destroyed. The more crashes I see on the road as I get older, the more I realize that even though I complain about mileage on the H3, I may never go back to a normal car again and be Hummer-Exclusive, unless it's a project race car. I don't want to get a call one day that my wife is on her deathbed because of the SmartCar she wanted so bad. I kinda talked her out of it by telling her we'd get the H3T or a Dodge RAM. She loves pickups.

 

I've still been trying to get some time to go out to the smart car dealership (one right where I live) and take one for a test drive... except I want to bring it back in my truck (longbox silverado) as a gag.


On another note, they get about 35-40MPG and they are expensive and inefficient. Two passengers for 35mpg is hardly any feat, a Malibu or Camry beats that with cargo and multiple people... not to mention the safety aspect.

 

Exactly. You know why? They interviewed the dealership on the news. We HAD the first official American SmartCar dealership in the country here in the Chicago area, so the media was all over that. Now they are popping up all over.

They told the reporters the reason it only gets 35 MPG is because American's want more power in their cars then Europeans, so they beefed up the engines and HP to appease the U.S. customers.

Wasn't the point of the SmartCar to get great mileage? I'm sorry, but I don't remember anybody ever talking about buying a SmartCar for their quarter-mile times.

 

You may get a kick out of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtDTG18MxIs

 

So they can power a SmartCar with a Gixxer motor but Mercedez/BMW (forgot who the distributer was) can't get the thing to get more then 35 MPG.

Remember the late 90's/early 2000 Corrolas? They got 40 MPG highway, and they were/are 4 door sedans.

12k you say? No thanks