i am a big fan of the Smart Car. It is owned/made by DaimlerChrysler
you can check it out at http://www.smart.com (i could not find any info about this on the website, but it is possible i missed it.)
i have seen it all over Europe, but i live in the US.
Does anyone know whether it is possible to get one here? (either purchase here, or how much it costs to ship one) if so, would it be legal to drive?
i really doubt i would get a car, but i am just sort of curious.
More than likely, it would be prohibitavely (sp?) expensive to get it to pass the crash and emissions tests. There are some fun stories about trying to get a Porsche 959 street legal in the US and it would require performing a crash test on one, which no one is willing to do with the $1 Million car.
-dave-
Does anyone actually drive those million-dollar Porshes? I’ve always figured that the owners built climate-controlled garages to display their trophies in.
When they first came out, I read a story in Motor Trend about a guy in Germany who not only bought one, but wrecked it soon after while showing off on the autobahn. Posrche towed the car back to the factory and repaired it at no charge!
But, you’re right, most rich guys put such cars on display.
Last week there were two Smarts on display at The Block at Orange. One was bule and black (soft top ?) and the other was blue and silver (hard top). I saw them as the dealer was setting up the display. They weren’t there the next day.
I liked them. I thought they were utterly hip. My co-worker (who’s 8 years older than I) thought they were dangerous-looking and ugly.
I like the concept. If I was looking for a new, economical car, I’d check them out.
Sally Jessy Raphael bought one and tried to bring it over. She had quite a hard time of it–I can’t remember the details, exactly. Sorry. The story was reported in both the New York Times and the National Enquirer.
Here is the cite for the NYT article:
Title: ‘I Fell for an Undocumented Alien.’
Subject(s): MERCEDES-Benz Smart (Automobile); RAPHAEL, Sally Jessy; AUTOMOBILES, Foreign – United States; COMPACT cars
Source: New York Times, 04/09/2000, Vol. 149 Issue 51353, Section 12 p1, 0p, 3c
Author(s): Siano, Joseph
Abstract: Focuses on a Mercedes-Benz Smart automobile owned by talk-show host Sally Jessy Raphael. Problems she had getting it through customs from France to the United States; Description of the car, which is only eight feet long and four feet wide; The commotion it causes in the United States.
It’s not a Porsche, but Rowan Atkinson, the British actor/comedian, crashed his $1,000,000plus McLaren F1.
http://www.itn.co.uk/Entertainment/ents19991026/102603.htm
If there’re enough people willing to pay extra for a “gray-market” car, someone may go to the trouble of crash-testing and doing the other things necessary for street legality. www.motorex.com, for instance, imports the Nissan Skyline into the United States, although at quite a premium.
Sorry, the url for Motorex was changed to www.skylinegtr.com.