[smark]

This is Lombard Street in San Francisco in 1922 when it was first built. And below is Lombard covered with 133 smart cars.

The design was first suggested by property owner Carl Henry.
It was built out of necessity because the hill was too steep for most cars back then. It went from a 27% grade to a 16% grade. The agreement was that the city would pay for the street. The residents would pay for the steps and maintain the plantings. At first, Lombard was a two-way street. Can you imagine driving UP Lombard? It was changed to one-way in 1939. And as they say, the rest is history.

 

[Bob Ricewasser]

From what I heard years ago, the organizer of this event had failed to secure a permit to park a large group of smart cars at Fort Point, after they drove down Lombard St. He was cited for this when all of the smart cars showed up and jammed the parking lot. I believe some words were exchanged which resulted in the situation not going well. This was the end of the smart car San Francisco adventures. If I am incorrect, someone please fill in the details as what I have said is based on heresay.

 

[smark]

 

[the big e]

Wow!

 

[jmartinsmart]

Yup... I was there:

It was a great event. I was like car #134 or something like that.
There were some problems when we showed up at Fort Point, because in order to fit, we were parking 2 and 3 deep. Some idiot (my term) didn't like this and pulled the whole, "you should have gotten a permit" thing. So we left.
We went across the Golden Gate to Sausalito where they loved us.

Me coming out at the bottom of Lombard Street:

My 2008 was practically brand new.

Jim

 

[jmartinsmart]

Some more photos if anyone wants:

Staging (panoram) before the Police Escort to the top of Lombard:

 

[jmartinsmart]

Escorted to the top:

 

[jmartinsmart]

"Okay Jim... enough is enough."
It was a great event though, I will always remember it fondly.

Jim

 

[the big e]

Looked like fun.
Thanks for the pics.

 

[smark]

Wonderful photo’s. When smart cars were a hot commodity. Miss those years.

 

[jmartinsmart]

In hindsight, I should have bought two... I could have sold the second one to pay for most of the first one.

For those that don't remember:
They were so hot you could pay several thousand over list and still be on a waiting list.
Orders were being taken by Penske for the next model year.
Within a year, things settled down though, and some of the $100 deposit cars were not being picked up, so there were some orphans available, but you still saw big markups by the dealers.

I got 13 years out of mine.
190K miles and at least 190K smiles.

Jim

 

[smark]

I put 99 bucks down, to per order. Paid sticker for it. There were a few Orphan cars available.

 

[jackGWMS]

I preordered mine. I took a trip to Italy and loved the way they drove them in Rome. I rented one to drive back and forth to Naples. When I returned to Texas, I found out Penske was going to be bringing them over. I phoned his headquarters and was directed to Mr. Penske's secretary. I called her many times for quite a while until she promised to call before the preorder site went live. Mr. Penske's secretary phoned me before the website to preorder went live. It was on the first car delivery truck sent to Dallas Texas. Two of the happiest days in my life were that call and the one telling me the car had arrived.

 

[Joannie]

What great stories

 

[the big e]

Agreed

 

[citroen]

I put 99 bucks down, to per order. Paid sticker for it. There were a few Orphan cars available.

I ordered an 08 the third day you could place orders. waited 53 weeks for it to arrive. Was supposed to come to smart SLC but the building wasn't built yet so was diverted to PDX. Thumbs up all the way back to Boise. I now own a 2017 cab much different than my 08. Good old days lots of buzz on this site then.

 

[TopSpeed]

This is cool. Wouldve been an awesome site to see. Thanks for posting