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If you’ve seen an exceptionally small silver car riding around town — and by small we’re talking 8 feet, 8 inches in length — you’ve probably crossed the path of Sharon Cost.

The Newnan resident won the right to drive a “smart car” for 30 days in an Earth Day raffle offered by Buckhead Area Transportation Management Association (BATMA) in honor of Earth Day 2008.

Cost, who is about two weeks into her 30-day trial, works in Buckhead as an administrative assistant in a law firm, and she’s no stranger to environmental responsibility. Cost, also a recycler, typically drives a Toyota that gets around 33 miles to the gallon. Her daily commute brings her as far as the College Park MARTA station, where she takes a train the rest of the way in.

Cost is an Atlanta native but lived for a while in Arizona.

“I remember being very surprised, and a little disappointed, when I returned to the area and found that Georgia was a good bit behind Arizona in terms of eco-consciousness,” said Cost, who tries to be a responsible consumer.

“I remember being very surprised, and a little disappointed, when I returned to the area and found that Georgia was a good bit behind Arizona in terms of eco-consciousness,” said Cost, who tries to be a responsible consumer.

Cost happened to walk over to Lenox Mall on Earth Day for lunch and stumbled upon BATMA’s “Go Green & Commute Clean” Earth Day event. When BATMA called a few days later to say she had won, she screamed in the middle of her typically staid Buckhead legal office.

“If I had the money, I’d consider buying one,” said Cost. “It’s fun to drive. You get lots of stares out on the road and more than a few ‘thumbs up’ from fellow drivers. When I stopped at Kroger in Thomas Crossroads for groceries, there were five people circling the car when I came out,” she added. “They all wanted to know where I got it, and how good the gas mileage was.”

According to the www.smartusa.com Web site, the gas mileage rating was 40 miles per gallon in the city and 45 on the highway under the 2007 Environmental Protection Agency rating system. Under the new 2008 EPA rating system, the car is rated at 33/41. Cost said she’s been getting between 38 to 43 miles per gallon since she picked it up.

The two-seater smart cars are produced by Mercedes-Benz in Hambach, France, about an hour and a half from the company’s headquarters in Stuggart, Germany, utilizing carbon footprint-conscious, smart manufacturing technology. The facility uses rain water to cool the machinery and captures and recycles the steam generated by the manufacturing process.

Smart cars, also called “smart fortwo,” are 95 percent biodegradable and come with a surprising five-star safety rating, certified by both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) just this past month.

Cost picked up her smart car at smart center Buckhead, which occupies space in the Mercedes-Benz of Buckhead dealership. Smart center Buckhead is the only smart car dealer in Georgia. The demand is high. Europe is way ahead of us in terms of the number of smart cars on the road, but they’re really catching on here in the U.S.

“We’ve outsold the nation two months in a row,” said Emily Stubbs, brand manager at smart center Buckhead. You’ll have to plan ahead if you want to buy one. Smart center Buckhead doesn’t sell cars off a lot. You can reserve a smart car for a $99 reservation fee, and you’ll wait about a year to take delivery.

The vehicles start at $11,600 and top out around $16,600. The $99 registration fee is fully refundable at delivery. About nine months into the reservation process, buyers are asked to configure the car for delivery approximately 90 days later.

And get this, the “skins” are interchangeable. For about $1,200 more, owners can purchase different color skins and change the color of their smart car to match their moods.

This business of changing out the color of your car comes from SWATCH, of interchangeable watch band fame. In fact, the word “smart” derives from “S” for Swatch, “M” for Mercedes-Benz, and “art” for the interchangeable color configuration. This interchangeable format begs the question, why not let people digitally “design” custom skins, which would take the “art” component to a whole new level? I think I should get a free smart car just for suggesting it. What’s the area code in France?

Riding in a smart car is like channeling Fred and Wilma, minus the foot power. The vehicle is surprisingly zippy. The engine is mounted in the rear and is rear-wheel drive.

The one liter, three in-line cylinder engine is an “automated manual five speed.” The smart car is 106 inches in length by 61 inches in width. You can “buddy park” two smart cars in one standard parking space. Not only that, but you can tandem park them side by side, rear wheels to the curb, in one parallel parking space, something I’d personally like to see (wonder if you can split a parking ticket if you illegally park).

Smart center Buckhead is at 2799 Piedmont Road, N.E. in Atlanta. For more information, call 404-425-5560 or log onto www.smartcenterbuckhead.com. For even more product information, go to www.smartusa.com. And if you see that little, silver car running around Coweta County, give Sharon Cost a thumbs up.

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With gas prices almost doubled, consumers are looking for much needed relief. Maybe “Smart Cars” are the answer, but is it too soon? Every day we drive to work, to the store, or over to our friend’s house and we see these huge trucks on our highways.
I think the way to deal with the gas crisis is to drive smaller more efficient cars, but not to drive smaller cars until something is done about the huge trucks on our highways. Have you ever pulled up beside an eighteen-wheeler and just looked at the size of their tires?You can read the size of the tire out your window…What would happen if that truck hit you?
Our accident construction expert has always stressed that, “mass is important.” When you put a “Smart Car” up against an eighteen-wheeler, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out who wins. That is why truckers are held to high standards.NHTSA did something about the diverse size of vehicles on our highways and protected consumers. Trial lawyers every day are working hard to increase safety on our highways. You can help these trial lawyers by contacting your Senators and Representatives and telling them it is time to take action to protect consumers.

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The Smart Car Fortwo, the tiniest car for sale on the US market, on Wednesday received top marks in its class in crash tests by the US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the group said.

The positive safety ratings, combined with rising fuel costs, could spell good news for the Daimler AG vehicle which was introduced this year amid skepticism from a US public that tends to favor larger trucks and sports utility vehicles (SUVs).

The car “earned the top rating of ‘good’ for front and side crash protection,” the institute said, adding that it earned the “second highest rating of ‘acceptable’ for protection against whiplash in rear impacts.”

The test results “generally demonstrate how well vehicles stack up against others of similar size and weight,” the institute said, noting that a “small car that earns a good rating isn’t safer than a large car that’s rated less than good.”

The frontal crash test involved a 40 mile-per-hour (64 kilometer-per-hour) crash test with a dummy in the driver’s seat, while the side tests involved a moving barrier striking the car at 31 mph (50 kph).

The rear crash simulation involves a stationary vehicle struck at 20 mph (32 kph).

“All things being equal in safety, bigger and heavier is always better,” said Adrian Lund, institute president. “But among the smallest cars, the engineers of Smart did their homework and designed a high level of safety into a very small package.”

The Smart Fortwo falls into the microcar category, meaning it is even smaller than a minicar. At 1,800 pounds (816 kilograms) it is 700 pounds (318 kilograms) lighter and three feet (one meter) shorter than a Mini Cooper.

Although commonly seen on the streets of Europe, the Smart Car Fortwo was introduced to the United States in January, and Daimler hopes to sell 20,000-25,000 models at 68 points of sale.

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