One of the annoying things that I loved about my first car (a new '71 VW) is that it was so airtight that you had to either roll the window down to close the door, or shut it very hard. VW used to advertise that it was so airtight that it would float!
Well, since then I've never seen another car that was that airtight, until the smart came along. Now with the smart, as with the Beetle, I have to really give a tug (or push) on the doors to overcome the air inside the car, or else roll down a window.
The smart is kind of (very much) like the VW Beetle in both philosophy and design... solid, inexpensive, simple, durable, German, rear engine/rear-wheel drive. (Has anyone noticed that smart does NOT emphasize its rear engine layout?) But the smart is a car for today, no longer just basic transportation. It has the same charisma, and attracts the same type of admirers. Once the Beetle was the quirkiest thing on the road, and then look what happened.
The smart is one of the few soul cars ever made, and no one could appreciate what that means without spending time with one. Just like the Beetle.
One of the annoying things that I loved about my first car (a new '71 VW) is that it was so airtight that you had to either roll the window down to close the door, or shut it very hard. VW used to advertise that it was so airtight that it would float!
Well, since then I've never seen another car that was that airtight, until the smart came along. Now with the smart, as with the Beetle, I have to really give a tug (or push) on the doors to overcome the air inside the car, or else roll down a window.
The smart is kind of (very much) like the VW Beetle in both philosophy and design... solid, inexpensive, simple, durable, German, rear engine/rear-wheel drive. (Has anyone noticed that smart does NOT emphasize its rear engine layout?) But the smart is a car for today, no longer just basic transportation. It has the same charisma, and attracts the same type of admirers. Once the Beetle was the quirkiest thing on the road, and then look what happened.
The smart is one of the few soul cars ever made, and no one could appreciate what that means without spending time with one. Just like the Beetle.
In my opinion, your post is not only well written but, also poignant, specifically the last two paragraphs.
No other automobile, of this size or price range, even approches the definition of these two paragraphs.
Funny that Swatch first worked with VW on the city car concept before they dropped the project and it was shopped to Diamler who was all ready working on a concept.
And it is German, everything about it, except the French factory workers who put it together for much less than German ones.
I do think that the smart is the VW Bug of the 21st Century.
Udo Kaiser, the German manager of smart San Diego, has spent much time in the smartville factory, and says that the vast majority of workers there are German. Whatever! Maybe the smart is a mutt, a mix of cultures, but that's cool, too.
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