Seattle Times: Dealer is looking Smart

DaimlerChrysler announced last week that U.S. consumers will finally get its tiny Smart car in 2008, but a car dealer in Kirkland that got smart a long time ago already has sold 80 of them since February.

Green Car, one of the largest dealers of Smart cars in the United States, imports them from Europe through a distributor and has them modified to fit U.S. specifications. The company has sold them to customers in six states, said Service Manager Susan Fahnestock.

That's not all.

Fahnestock says her company is out to reinvent the car dealership the way REI changed the sporting-goods store and Whole Foods remade the supermarket.

Green Car obtains Smart cars through ZAP, a Santa Rosa, Calif., company that distributes the vehicles. About 200 Smarts have been sold in the United States, ZAP said. (See an interview video from the Consumer Electronics Show 2006 with I4U News)

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