Base price: $11,590 for coupe; $16,590 for cabriolet. Size: 8.8 feet long, 5.1 feet wide, 5.1 feet tall. Engine: 1.0-L, 3-cylinder, 70-horsepower Max speed: 90 m.p.h. 0 to 60 m.p.h.: 12.8 seconds Fuel economy: 33 city/40 highway m.p.g. under new 2008 EPA provisions (40 city/45 highway m.p.g. under 2007 testing provisions). Safety: Standard driver, passenger and side air bags; antilock brakes, electronic stability control.
SMART MEDIA: Getting a book for Christmas often ranks up there with Grandma’s annual gift of thin black socks and a mis-monogrammed handkerchief. But when the outdoors are too, well, outdoors for the day, a good book or movie is a blessing. To keep your pulse thumping while you’re indoors, pop open Sean Burch’s Hyperfitness (Avery, $24.95) and prepare for your own solo ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen.
Europeans have been driving Smart cars for a decade, but the Smart is just now hitting U.S. roadways. Smart USA President Dave Schembri, who worked on a team that considered a Smart sport utility vehicle for the U.S. market in the late 1990s, said the country just wasn t ready for Smart at the time. But fuel prices and increasing concern about the environment have changed that, he said.