My kids' Dad

Inaugural Grand Rapids smart meet up

Here are some photos from yesterday's local meet up. We had 15 people attend and 7 shiny new smart cars from around the state.

Seven little smarts all in a row!

One blue one is hiding - can you find it?

Great bunch of people - as soon as we met we all hit it off - non-stop smart talk!

This is the Steelcase Corporate Development Center (called the Pyramid) largest building in West Michigan it is as unique as the cars. Like smartville Steelcase also has a natural landscape that is native to the area.

Five smarts easily fit in 2 regular parking spots!

Another shot showing the relative size to ‘normal’ cars.

At the local McDonald’s customers were very excited!

Steelcase Global Headquarters front entrance another pleasant mix of style and values.

As part of our local smart club meeting (inaugural meeting), we stopped at the Steelcase Global Headquarters – Steelcase also is a champion of sustainable development and Lean Thinking.

Tearing into my ForTwo

I was unhappy with having a lid on the glove box area. It was getting in the way of using my iPod and I felt that it was a waste of space. When some change that my daughter put on the lip outside of the box slipped under the frame (but not into the glove box I decided that I could pull out the frame and just do without. Then I noticed the rubber mats on e-bay and decided to take action.

I am very happy with this change and feel that the interior is more flexible now. Below are some recent photos. I plan on cleaning up the scratches and holes either with an overlay panel or some material that will hide damage.

 

Subzero temps and the smart

The weather today is deadly cold - 0F and below (which the car's gauge accurately displays). When it is this cold we get wind chills down around -20F, the road salt stops working so road crews lay down sand, and the locals try to stay off of the roads since they will ice up and get very slick. My smart is getting a bit squirrelly in these conditions, but then again so do most cars. I feel comfortable driving with this car in these conditions and only a fool would drive without caution. The heater takes a little while to warm up but once the car is warm it keeps up with the cold. Having heated seats is really appreciated on days like this and keeps the delay in engine warming from being an issue.

Notice the height of the snow in the background.

 

And here are some videos we shot from today:

smart invoice

For those who want to see the dealer invoice for my 2008 Passion with the options I ordered online:

In addition to the invoice I paid $995 for 60 month service contract, $113 for two sets of optional floor mats (rubber and fabric), $971 Michigan tax and $180 documentation fee plus $23 registration and title fees for a grand total of $18,171.98. I could have saved $5K with the base Pure model and no options but what fun would that be? I did not want to spend the typical $30K for a typical family sedan. I saved a lot of money and got lots of extras I did want like upgraded sound system, leather seats, heated seats, A/C, rain and light sensors and alarm.

smart car links

I wanted to start a list of good smart car links:

smart usa official site
451s named after the 2008 smart model "451"
SCOA smart car of America enthusiast site
smartclub hongkong - just awesome check out the splash page, just like driving a real smart car!
S-Smart.com - I wish I knew Chinese!
smart center Bloomfield - where I bought my smart
Club smart car - Canadian club site
thesmartclub - UK site
Scoot - Toronto blog for smart owners
smart canada - Official site
smart times - web magazine based in UK
evilution - another UK site
fortwo chat - another US site
smart fortwo blog - smart car blog

Online parts:
Smartune - Seattle based site (where I ordered my Doug Thorley headers)
smartsRus - UK smart parts (bought my EBC pads here)
Flying Tiger - online smart car parts Canada
Smart Tune - UK smart parts online
parts4smarts - Canadian online parts
smart movez - online smart parts in Florida

Reviews
Road & Track
Daimler's Minicar - More Charming Than Smart - WSJ Mar 21 2008
Mercedes sees electric-car progress - USA Today Mar 24 2008

Smart Car of America Member Location

Check out this NY Times blog post on smart.

You can check out a map of smart owners (or wannabes) who have chosen to map themselves on mapservices.org.

More smart car coverage

A local TV station came out to shoot a piece about our smart car. While in Hong Kong a friend gave me this little figure of AstroBoy - he sure seems to fit, doesn't he?

First day with a smart car

Our new smart car is getting a lot of attention like this blog from our local paper.

I dropped our son off at school today and all his friends were mightily impressed. At work is was a non stop tour all day long by staff and visitors. Of course I had the car washed before I got to work since the drive in last night was so nasty. The car wash people were amazed. Crossing guards were amazed. In short everywhere I go I am getting a lot of stares and then smiles.

My new Smart Car

Just picked up my new 2008 Passion smart car from Detroit. I was one of the first to register and one of the first to get delivery in Michigan. (I think I was the 12th to pick up but since I was in China for the last couple weeks I could have picked it up earlier were I in the country.)

The dealership site and the smart car site are linked.

Our next step is to establish a smart car enuthusiast club for West Michigan.

Check out the Smart Car of America web site for enthusiasts.

Passover Epilogue

The family enjoyed Jesus Christ Superstar last Sunday. The show was entertaining and the family enjoyed the event. We waited after the show to talk to Ted Neeley and were not disappointed. He spent 10-15 minutes talking to us and was so gracious. He reminisced about the old venue I had worked at and chatted up each of the kids. Since it was Easter cast member had received Easter baskets with little goodies so some cast members also gave my kids some of those little edible peeps and some miracle bubbles. Now my kids can tell our rabbi that on Easter they talked to Jesus and were given gifts by the apostles.

I also rented the DVD The Pursuit of Happyness which deals with the lengths a father goes through to take care of his son. It is based upon a true story and uplifting. The other DVD I recently rented was Water which is about a 7 year old Hindu girl that is just married and then widowed and forced to spend her life as a widow. It is enjoyable and also makes for a pretty good companion film to Richard Attenborough's  Gandhi which was splendid, O Bapu!