Importers promise 60-mpg coupes; carmaker itself eyes SUV
News from MSNBC
By Miguel Llanos:
The tiny car that won over Europeans with its cute looks and very high mileage is finally coming to America, just not in the way you might expect it to.
The 60-mpg, two-seat coupes are made by a European company called smart, but the DaimlerChrysler division is not the one selling them here anytime soon. True, they will be sold in Canada starting in September, but not so in the United States.
Instead, smart USA is betting Americans won't want the small smarts, at least not yet, and has taken a different strategy: a smart SUV, available here in 2006. The first press release touts not the mileage but that it's "loaded with adrenaline — both off road as well as on."
While that might run counter to smart's origins as a nifty, thrifty machine, it also has left the door open for third-party importers to bring the small smarts into the United States.
And that's exactly what several importers plan to do.
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