Smart USA to release second, larger model car
An interior view of the Smart dealership showroom in Roslyn. (Oct. 25, 2010) Credit: Audrey C. Tiernan
With one of its two Long Island dealerships closed, gasoline prices down and the newness of its cars worn off, Smart USA has been struggling with slumping sales. Now comes some good news for dealers and for Smart owners who might want a bigger one: The company plans about a year from now to introduce a second, larger model.
Through September, sales of the two-seat Smart ForTwo nationally are down by 62 percent from a year earlier, to 4,779. Out of more than 100,000 new vehicles registered on Long Island from January through July, only 37 were Smart ForTwo coupes, hatchbacks or convertibles - 34 percent fewer than a year earlier, according to the auto data company R.L. Polk.
The Smart dealership in St. James closed in January; the remaining Long Island store is in Roslyn and there is another in Manhattan.
The upcoming new model, a five-door hatchback, is to be designed jointly with Nissan under an agreement between Nissan and the Penske Automotive Group, which owns Smart USA. The Smart is produced in France by Daimler AG.
An electric-powered version of the ForTwo is due out next month, with the first 250 for lease only and more in 2012 for general sale.
Smart owner John Sheehan, a 66-year-old retired Air Force employee, helped organize an owners' rally in Kansas City, Mo., earlier this year and drives a 2009 model. Sheehan said, "The key to this car is people need to drive it. A lot of people have perceptions about the car as too small or not safe because they have never actually gone on a drive in one."
The brand's best year was its first, 2008, when gasoline prices soared to more than $4 a gallon and 24,622 Smarts were sold nationally.
There indeed have been safety concerns about the ForTwo. While the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the private Insurance Institute for Highway Safety rate the car highly for its protection of the driver in a frontal impact, their tests simulate a crash into a wall or a head-on crash with a car of similar weight.
But virtually every other car or truck on the road weighs more than the 1,800-pound ForTwo. In a head-on test crash with a Mercedes-Benz C-Class conducted by the insurance institute in 2009, the Smart went airborne and turned around 450 degrees.
Smart USA spokesman Rick Bourgoise in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., said the 2011 ForTwo, to be unveiled next month at the Los Angeles Auto Show, will have eight air bags, twice as many as the 2010 model, with the addition of knee and head curtain units.
The 3-cylinder, 70-hp. car requires premium gasoline but attains an average of 33 mpg in city driving and 41 mpg highway, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
As an investment, though, the ForTwo has turned out not very "smart." Alec Gutierrez, lead analyst for vehicle valuation for the Kelley Blue Book used car price guide, says a 2008 ForTwo has retained only 57 percent of its value, while its most direct competitor, the Mini Cooper, retains 68 percent of its original price as a trade-in. "That's a significant difference," he said.
Bourgoise says the total number of dealerships nationwide, including Puerto Rico, has stayed fairly constant - now at 78, with some new ones opening to replace those that were shuttered.
