<VV> Re: No Corvair - Is the Smart Car smart enough to sell in NA?

[Garth Stapon]

Padgett:

I just read an interview with the new chief at Daimler (Juergen Schremp sp?) and he clearly stated that in view of recent fuel price increases they are looking at importing Smart cars into NA.

If this happens, it will be very interesting to see if NA drivers respond with their pocket books.

Regards, Garth

-----Original Message-----
From: Padgett <pp2 at 6007.us>
Sent: Oct 9, 2005 11:28 AM
To: virtualvairs at corvair.org
Subject: <VV>GM cars and gas mileage- little Corvair 


>I bought an '04 Cavalier almost
>2 years ago.  Since Katrina and the gas price jump, I've slowed down on my
>drive to work and am getting over 34 mpg for combined city and (mostly)
>highway driving.  It is a LOT bigger car than the Aveo, which I might have
>considered had it been available (or I had known about it).  Can't imagine
>the Cobalt gets worse mileage.

This is the size creep I was talking about. The original metro had a 3 
cyl  1.0 liter (61.5 cid) engine. Most wore out in 30,000 miles which is 
why they are not seen often. Like the Aveo, Pontiac had a Canada-only 
version called the Firefly.
Later cars replaced the 3 cyl Suzuki with a 1.3 liter 4 cyl which I believe 
was from Toyota. Today the smallest GM engine sold in the USA is the 1.6 
liter Daewoo in the Aveo. Today GM has *nothing* competitive in the submini 
class. Even Saturns are now big.

>  The automotive section of the local paper
>wrote up the Aveo yesterday and gave it good marks.

They know who pays for the ads.

>In order to get all the bells & whistles, like CD player,  power locks & 
>windows, etc you have to
>buy the high-end LT.

And depreciation is based on the MSRP of the loss leader. While they bill 
the Aveo as $9995, by the time you get to the LT and even as a year old 
model that sat on a lot for 8 months, they want $14k "employee price" which 
means a bunch of depreciation the minute you drive off the lot.  OTOH a 
2006 Scion XA fully equipped  with 1.5 l engine that gets over 30 mpg both 
city and highway is less than a grand more if you know what to say and 
depreciates very little. What is wrong with this picture ?

If Chrysler could bring the Smart Car in today, they would sell a ton. But 
they won't.

Padgett 

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