It's sat afternoon and I'm on the couch with a beer waiting for the start of the first NFL play off game and my cell phone rings. Guess who called? Dave Schenbri, President of smart USA!!!!!
On December 2nd I mailed a letter to Roger Penske thanking him for bringing the Smart Car to America but critical of the lack of info the reservationists were recieving after the initial announcements in the spring that dealers would be contacting us in the fall of 2007.
Apparently, Roger gave the letter to Dave and asked him to respond. Dave misplaced the letter until today and called me on Sat afternoon to apologize.
We chatted for a while and he provided the following information to me>>>
As has been reported here the primary holdup has been state licensing for the dealers.
There are a significant number of cars here at the ports and they are ready to roll. There are no issues with emissions or anything else.
They are using three ports, Baltimore, Jacksonville and Long Beach.
There will be an all dealers conference call on the evening of the 8th of January. That night Fed-X packages will go out to all open dealers that will contain the information of reservations and cars assigned to them. So they will have that info on the 9th or 10th and should start to contact the reservationists.
Cars will be dispatched from the ports beginning on the 14th to the dealerships.
Cars will be shipped to your dealer (assigned by zip code) if your dealer will have his showroom open before Feb 1. If your assigned dealer will not be open until after Feb 1 and you have an early reservation your car will be shipped and you will be contacted by the closest dealer to you that is open when your car is available.
For Central Florida folks there will be 4 dealers-Sarasota, Clearwater, Tampa and Orlando. Sarasota is open now, Orlando is scheduled to open Jan 20 and the others will be later this spring.
That's what I got from him and I have to tell you I was very impressed that he called and it gives me a very good feeling about Smart USA.
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