Continued: Mini-mobile elicits huge smiles

There aren't a lot of guys who can tell you how long or how wide their cars are, down to the inch.

Jim Melville can.

After waiting for roughly a year to have it delivered, Jim and his wife, Marilyn, of Eagan, are among the first Minnesotans to own a "Smart," the eensy-weensy microcar that for years has been causing tourists in Europe to reach for their cameras in pure mirthful disbelief.

A fighter pilot in the military who flew corporate jets for Pillsbury and General Mills until he retired, Jim swears he could slip his new car into the back of his Ford F-150 truck.

"If gas keeps going up," he says, "this is the wave of the future."

The two-seat Smart car is the result of a relationship between Mercedes-Benz and Swatch, the makers of the colorful watches. It is to Mercedes what the now-familiar Mini Cooper is to its parent, BMW. But it redefines tiny, being almost 2 feet shorter.

You'd expect both cars to be a stronger draw in southwest Minneapolis than in the 'burbs. And that's proving true up to a point, said Jennifer Bergman, manager of the Smart dealership in Bloomington. Asked to define her core market, she said:

"I don't know if 'granola crunchers' is the technical term or not, but, you know, that Uptown/Greenpeace/Obama crowd."

But couples like the Melvilles are a notable segment of the market, she said. "We have a pretty diverse demographic: a lot of older people who've seen them in Europe."

Marilyn Melville calls the car her "wind-up toy" and says it's getting an admiring response.

"An Apple Valley cop pulled up beside me at a stoplight and gestured to roll down my window," she said. "'How much IS that thing?' '$13,000' [in the not-totally-stripped-down version]. He asks a bunch of other questions, then apologizes for holding me through an entire green light and says, 'We'll all be driving those someday.'"

The Melvilles say they get 40 miles per gallon, city or highway, and probably would get markedly more in the country if they drove less than 70 miles per hour.

"I'm saving $250 a month on gas driving this little sucker versus the F-150," Jim said, especially because he zips back and forth from the couple's Wisconsin farm from time to time.

It's not an ultra-smooth ride, he admits, and it gets buffeted a bit in a strong wind. "You feel it, fighting the wind. You get tired on a long trip."

But he does strongly defend the car's safety, pointing to the Mercedes-engineered box that surrounds the car's occupants. And in fact, even one of the more critical reviews of the car, in the Detroit News, dismissing it as a "fashion accessory," expresses "faith in Mercedes and its tridion safety cell."

A ride in the car with him through Eagan proved he's right that at this stage at least, one of the most extraordinary things about owning one is the huge, startled smiles it elicits from passersby.

"People just -- honest to God, it takes me half an hour each time at the gas station. 'Where did you get that, how much does it cost, is it electric?'"

Oh -- and about the size? "8 feet 6 inches long; 5 feet 1 inch wide."

David Peterson • 952-882-9023

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