Thursday, June 18, 2009

Cars I never saw on the NJ Turnpike: Part 2


Smart Cars
These small practical cars can be seen all over Rome. You can park one vertically to the sidewalk because it's length is equal to the width of many other types of cars. Two or three Smart cars can park in the same space as a normal car.
The idea for the cars was started by Swiss watch manufacturer Swatch. In 1994 a joint venture of Mercedes Benz and Swatch started to work on the project. The Smart Car was introduced in Frankfort in 1997 and in one year it was being sold in nine European countries. Today the Smart Car is sold in over two dozen countries world wide.
I never saw a SMART car on the New Jersey Turnike. (I moved to Rome in 2007 and Smart cars started being sold in the USA in 2008. I expect that now you can be see Smart cars on roads of New Jersey.)










2 comments:

Susan McFeatters said...

There are a couple of Smart cars on my block. They looked like they should have Tonka or Matchbox on them.

Anonymous said...

believe it or not there's one smart that parks every day in my street in Harlem.
looks estrange that car in NYC but I love it...design wise is perfect.
Carlos