It would appear that you won’t be seeing any of these cars after the end of the year (not in new-car showrooms, that is).
None of the deletions are particularly shocking — they’re either dated or else never caught on, for whatever reason.
The only one I feel sorry about is the SmartForTwo, and that only for sentimental reasons: had I continued to live in downtown Chicago, there is absolutely no question that I would have bought one, for its parking advantages if no other.
I know that a couple of you will pine for the Dodge Viper — Jeremy Clarkson, for one, will no doubt go into mourning — but while a lot of people may have liked the Viper, it was never enough for them to actually buy one. Ditto the Chevy (Holden) SS. Hence their passing.
As for the other 14 cars on the list… [shrug]. Ugly, dated, boring and superfluous: it’s frankly amazing that they lasted as long as they did. And the less said about the execrable Mercedes B-class (“no-class”, actually), the better.
I thought you owned a Touareg? Or was it a different VW SUV? I seem to be incapable of keeping track of SUV models due to indifference – even when I owned one.
I have the smaller Tiguan, not the Toe-rag. And if VW tries to discontinue the Tiggy, I’ll burn their head office to the ground. Not kidding.
Sorry – never could keep those 2 straight.
While the Stupid, er, Smart cars may make sense if you live in a congested city (is there any other kind?), once you get outside the area of 25 mph speed limits you might as well attach handles to the sides so they can just bury you in it. I can deal with lots of things on the road being bigger than me, but I’d rather not have EVERYTHING bigger than me, and if you’ll lose in a collision with a Honda Civic, that’s just Isaac Newton saying “Told ya so!”
•Smart ForTwo. The tiniest car on the market, the 8-foot, 8-inch wonder is going to be gone. But the electric version will live on.
This actually makes a lot of sense. I’m a bit of a skeptic when it comes to electric vehicles as general purpose automobiles. If I owned a smart car and had to get to Chicago I’d buy and airline ticket and pay the 50 bucks oversize baggage fee to check it. For this you would want the gasoline engine because you can’t check batteries.
But if I were commuting into and out of a dense urban area, especially one where I might be able to find preferential parking by a charger, I would seriously consider having an electric vehicle parked between my Lexus GX470 and my 1984 Diesel Land Cruiser.
Given that my longest “day” would be about 50-60 miles, and the range is 70-80 I’d want to be able to charge it somewhere, but it would work.
Of course, I’d rather use an electric motorcycle for that–I wouldn’t want something as tiny as a twofour in the winter (Denver, snow and ice mean I want *MOAR CRUMBLE ZOAN PLS* (sorry, couldn’t resist)) because just my “emergency/gethome kit” is bigger than the storage space available.
The Viper, SS and Prowler all had “additional dealer markup” higher than the MSRP. The dealerships claimed no one want to buy them. Small wonder.
I kind of like the idea of a smart car as something to put into the “garage”thingy on the backs of some motorhomes instead of 4 wheelers. It would be for when you are traveling in cities and don’t want to tow a full sized car. You can park and level the RV and go places in the glorified golf cart.
Plus, the SmartForTwo would never be stolen off the back…
If the motorhome is big enough just sling it off the back on a pair of davits, like a lifeboat.
I’d want a motorcycle engine in that Smartcar. That sort of swap looks like serious fun! Lots of youtube videos on that.
I always thought the Smart cars were the epitome of the butt-ugly Eurostyle stubbed toe cars suitable for the masses.
I’m sorry for the Viper, though I had no interest in one for myself. It was at least an effort to build something awesome and powerful (and relative to most of the cars it competed against, affordable) instead of grinding out stubbed toes for ‘de liddle pipple’.