A convoy of five gasoline smart cars are making their way from California to New York right now. You can check out the blog here.

Here’s part of what Jan Wagner of www.automatters.net had to say today:

TEST 1: No sooner than I had done that and it was time for the SMART car’s first test. Just how much luggage can be packed into a SMART car?

While I had seen SMART cars before, I had never looked closely at them with that in mind. This was going to be a two week trip, and in addition to clothes I also needed to pack some of my professional camera gear, a new 17″ notebook computer, discs and documentation for all of the computer’s programs (just in case it crashed again like it did the night before I left San Diego) and, of course, miscellaneous, fragile stuff. Oh, and if that wasn’t enough (or too much) I also needed to leave a fair bit of empty space, so that I could bring back two day’s worth of Press kits from Press Preview days at the New York International Auto Show. That could easily take up a large suitcase pretty much all by itself.

I can safely tell you that quite a bit fits in the smart car… here’s the photos from part way through my trip last summer:

Also note, for those in the Seattle area, a handful of gasoline smart cars will be available for sale. Read here for more details.

And in case you were wondering, Zap (stock symbol: ZP), well, it’s stocks are up again this week… 1000% or more.