Have Smart,will Travel

Exerpt from The Toronto Sun, Saturday October 29, 2005
By Rich Helms
Everyone knows the Smart car is an urban car designed for scooting around the city---well, everyone except those of us who do long-distance trips in our Smarts. Why not take a conventional car? I guess for the same reason people travel on motorcyles. My Smart is a green-on-green Pulse Cabrio--a unique car calls for an outrageous colour scheme. One result of this look is that the car never fails to bring a smile to your face.
My new heroes are Keith Hebert (www.100mpg.ca), who drove Victoria to St. John's and back (16,344 km averaging 3.63 L/100km, or 78mpg); and Rupert Lloyd-Thomas and his wife Annette, who did Toronto to Chicago, followed route 66 to California, up to B.C. and back to Toronto(14,500 km) (Smartcar.blogspot.com)
Since getting my Smart car on January 15, 2005, I have visited 13 states and logged 30,000 km, including trips to Cleveland, Ohio: Long Island, N.Y.; Raleigh, N.C.; Bentonville, Ark. This mileage over the course of nine months may not sem like a lot to people who commute to Toronto from the suburbs, but I live only minutes from my office.

My favourite comeback for the negative comments about the car was in Long Island, N.Y., when gas was $3.50 to $4 a gallon. I was stopped at a light, and had the top down. A man pulled up beside me in a large older car, laughed out loud and in a booming voice proclaimed, "That is the stupidest car I have ever seen." I turned and asked him if he had filled up with gas that day. "Yep, $70 worth," he answered. I replied, " I filled up, too. Cost me $12. Whose car's stupid now?"