I stopped by our local Mercedes dealership yesterday - the only one in Louisville- to see if they had any info on Smart dealerships and the road tour. I asked the front desk receptionists girl about Smart, and she said "Oh, you'll have to talk to 'so-and-so', he's the guy to talk to" and called him over. The way she said it, it gave me this positive feeling. However when I ask him about any word about being a Smart dealer he said "we considered putting in a bid for it, but in the long run didn't think the market here would support a dealership." He went on about something about a new C-class diesel that MB would be introducing that would get about the same mileage (yeah, right!) with twice the room, etc. He finally said that the 5-10 Smarts they might sell a month would not be worth the electricity. I mentioned to him that in the first year you wouldn't even have to keep any on the lot! I said, afterall you've got 25000 reservations and supposedly only 16,000 to be produced in the first year. He seemed to be surprised by the 25000 reservations number!
Made me wonder if the dealership had thought and decided about this a while ago, before the reservation program opened.
He did go on to say that he thought the "area" would have a Smart dealership, and by area he meant Louisville, Indy, Cincy area...or maybe some where in between? In any event, it left me with the bad feeling despite being a road show stop, that Louisville may not get a dealership.
(we don't have a MINI dealer yet, as well)
Made me wonder if the dealership had thought and decided about this a while ago, before the reservation program opened.
He did go on to say that he thought the "area" would have a Smart dealership, and by area he meant Louisville, Indy, Cincy area...or maybe some where in between? In any event, it left me with the bad feeling despite being a road show stop, that Louisville may not get a dealership.
(we don't have a MINI dealer yet, as well)