A surprising number of Japanese and Korean cars are built in the United States. My Eclipse isn’t an econobox, but it is a Japanese car that was built in the United States with 73% American parts.
It was built in a UAW factory in Normal, IL to be exact.
To contrast that, my mother’s Buick was built in Canada.
You can park it with the front bumper hanging over the curb in what would be a parallel parking spot for any other vehicle. Otherwise, very little. It’s a horribly compromised vehicle, thanks to the Elk Test among other things.
Nitpick: Getrag.
It’s not marketed as a Mercedes, but by Mercedes. Daimler AG (formerly DaimlerChrysler AG, and Daimler-Benz AG before that) is using Mercedes dealers to flog them in the US since it’s a niche model here.
The Ford Ka, VW Polo and Toyota Aygo are all sadly unavailable here. The Smart is pretty much only being sold here because it’s cool- at the prices they’re charging, nobody would buy one on its merits alone.
The Smart will go as soon as your foot hits the gas; it just won’t go very fast. 
Heh, kferr’s already done the legwork, he was the first person I thought of. 
It makes sense that Smart uses Mercedes dealers as distribution in the US. They must have learned from their European launch around 1998, when Smart Centers popped up on the outskirts of all major cities. Trendy, yes. Economically viable, no. Smart Cars was a loss proposition for many years before they started making money. I’m sure that was part of the reason to postpone the US introduction so long.
They’re good cars. Large enough for two people in a European city environment, where the roads are of good quality, parking spaces are tiny, and most cars around you aren’t 5 times your size.
In the US? I’d only consider it for the reasons already mentioned, so it would only really work in NYC or SF or so. Anything other than that, or any situation that required a modicum of highway driving, get something bigger. Surrounded by all those large-ass SUV’s, you’ll feel very vulnerable.
And it’s not exactly cheap, as already pointed out.
These cars are perfect on an island in the Caribbean or in other places where large scale vehicles aren’t a typical thing.
I’ve seen a few schumcks driving around Chicago in these little things, and if one of them cut me off in my pickup at speed, that would be it for them. That car would smash like a tin can. Sure, the For Two just got a ‘good’ and ‘acceptable’ rating for front and side impacts (though it’s too small to truly be rated) but that car is not a risk I’d take to save a few pennies at the pump.
For people mentioning San Francisco as a viable location, I would question that. There’s really no parking downtown, regardless of how tiny your car is, and elsewhere the spots are metered such that pulling in head first would still require a full space. Maybe on non-metered residential streets you could squeeze in somewhere that a normal car couldn’t, but those aren’t exactly in abundance. Basically anywhere you can park a car will already have a car or motorcycle in it.
Plus, I wouldn’t be caught dead in one of those things trying to start from a standstill on several dozen or so hills I can think of off the top of my head.
It may also get you a parking ticket. There was a story on this in the SF Chronicle a few months back. The laws still require both wheels along one side of the car to be within (whatever it is - 12 inches I think) of the curb. People evidently can and do get tickets for parking their SmartCars head-on. The officer quoted for the story agreed that it was a bit silly but the laws haven’t caught up to a vehicle that small yet. He did say that you could comfortably parallel park two of them in one metered space and as long as the meter isn’t expired nobody will get a ticket.
Consumer’s Union tested one and called it something like the worst car they’d ever driven.
I like the idea but the execution seems lacking (never been in one though). I’d rather get one of those little electric cars (limited to 35mph) for big shopping trips, or just stick with my bike.
Indeed. How…progressive.
My store took a Smart in trade about a month ago. I drove it. What a piece of shit. I cannot believe that MB let it out the door with the software this pile has in the transmission control module. Step on the gas, car accelerates. When it is time for a shift, the car abruptly slows down then shifts, then accelerates again. Hope you aren’t prone to motion sickness. I tried manually shifting it and it did the exact same thing. We sent it to the nearest Smart store, and had all five outstanding recalls/service campaigns done, and we were told that the transmission was normal.
Color me unimpressed.