On the morning of June 18th, an independent group of fifteen smart fortwo owners from Vancouver, Victoria, Kamloops and Calgary met in Bellingham WA. The weather was a bit overcast and it had rained. But the group was destined for Seattle. This was a follow-up to the April ‘smartour’ during the autoshow.

The 15 vehicles departed Bellingham on schedule at 11:30 am, and made their way south along Interstate 5. At one point, all 15 cars were in bumper to bumper convoy at 90 kmh. The sun broke the clouds near Everett, and the cabriolet tops came down. US motorists were clearly shocked to see this many peculiar little vehicles on their highway.

A batch of 5 ‘performance tuned’ smarts arrived at the Seattle Space Needle by 1:30 PM, and a curious crowd immediately gathered. When 15 minutes had passed, 10 more cars arrived, and filled in the rest of the space in the roundabout. Seattle Center staff generously accommodated some picture taking, before persuading the cars to carry on.

The group went through downtown next, passing near the fish market, then along other heavy retail streets before making their way out to Phil Smart Mercedes. The Canadians were warmly received, and welcomed by members of the Seattle Chapter of the Mercedes Benz Club of America. http://www.mbca.org KOMO TV was on hand to get footage at the dealership, which aired that same evening.

Owners then broke up into various groups, with some going via the Mukilteo Ferry to Whidbey Island and Deception Pass on the way back to Canada. Still another was heading for San Francisco and then Las Vegas. Apparently there’s going to be quite a few more “next stops”…