It still remains a mystery to many why smart was ever set up as a separate brand to begin with. People would have been just as happy to buy it for the same price with a Mercedes star on the hood, if not more so. The formore was a great car, just way too expensive to achieve the required sales volume.

The fortwo will need to come down in price as well, despite its cult status, especially if it is to be launched officially on the US market (note that Zap! is not affiliated directly with DaimlerChrysler in any way).

This smartfor2 is way too expensive for its size, do they want to sell it to greenhuggers only or what? Sales droped
probably to exastion of those kind of folks who already bought last year. For 20K CAD you can buy mazda 3 which seats 4 and economically on par with that little box.
I would say it needs to cost 12K CAD max for 'normal' people just to have a second thought of buying one. I have no idea how their bussiness plan is look like but I have a
feeling it has a fundamentally wrong basis.

The relatively high cost of the fortwo has kept me from buying one.. putting a Mercedes logo, with it's reputation for stupidly expensive rides, would not improve matters. Nor does putting more horses under the hood.

I think they've missed the mark with Smart cars, going for the 'small car enthusiast' market. Enthusiasts will take interest in whatever small car comes onto the market, so making a shiney bauble of a car and selling it like jewlery only has the effect of alienating the larger 'I want a decent, inexpensive and useful car' market.