Get Smart With A Smart Car

Surprising, the name is just so right for this little car. It was originally started by the auto maker Daimler-Chrysler, the people who make the Mercedes Benz and the watchmaker Swatch. So ‘Smart’ is actually an acronym that stood for ‘Swatch Mercedes ART’. The joint venture was set up in a place called Smartville in France. However, Swatch, inexperienced in the field of auto manufacturing and faced with the prospect of impending losses, pulled out. The company that manufactured ‘smart’, a division of Daimler-Chrysler was called ‘MCC’ or Micro Compact Car GmbH but its name was changed to Smart GmbH. It is based in Böblingen, Germany.The Smart Car was an idea so that city drivers would have a car that could very easily be parked, preferably ‘nose-in’ into a tiny space. It was to be a hybrid, taking environmental issues into consideration, it needed to seat only two and it needed to be reasonably priced so the young could afford it too.The car was launched in the 90's and it has over 750,000 customers in 36 countries today. At a time when gasoline prices seem to be soaring and pollution issues are growing in importance, it’s probably time to go smart and the car with its new logo has an arrow incorporated to show forward thinking as well as a C standing for ‘compact’.The cars, according to Daimler-Chrysler, will be launched in the U.S. in 2008 and will be sold by Hybrid Technologies as an electric version for about $30,000. Though it has been labeled a hybrid, in reality, it is be a totally electric car.

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