Smart car grows up - Calgary one of the first Canadian cities to latch on to the microcar
Greg Williams
For The Calgary Herald
Friday, August 01, 2008
When Mercedes-Benz designed the Smart car, chances are good it wasn’t thinking it would be a high-mileage freeway cruiser.
Or that it would be towing a light-duty trailer on a regular basis.
They obviously hadn’t heard of Les McDonald, a Cochrane-based Smart car owner. This microcar devotee has put 150,000 kilometres on his Smart ForTwo, driving to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico once, to the Maritimes twice, and Vancouver three times.
“This car can do a lot more than people think it can,”
McDonald says of the car’s utility factor. “With a Clever End (it expands the car’s carrying capacity) and a hitch, there’s just a world of things you can do.”
McDonald figures he’s towed a trailer for more than 110,000 kilometres, confidently pulling up to 275 kilograms.
This year, the little vehicle that obviously could, and that has transformed the world’s roads is celebrating 10 years of production.
On July 2, 1998, the first Smart car rolled off the assembly line at Smartville — the nickname for the car’s factory in Hambach, France.
The pint-sized vehicle drove onto roadways throughout Europe, and arrived in Canada in 2004. In early 2008, the Smart car hit the U.S.
Right now, more than 900,000 Smart cars are on the road in 37 countries.
However, the initial idea for the Smart goes back to 1972.
History….
