Launch: smart Dealers and Reservation Holders To Finally Connect

Update: Here's the e-mail:

Great News! We are excited to inform you that your smart fortwo is scheduled to arrive in the United States within the next 30 days. You will be one of the first customers to experience this amazing vehicle in the United States. Based on your address of record, your order has been assigned to xxxx smart center xxxx will be contacting you shortly work out details of your purchase agreement and arrange for delivery. When you enter into a purchase agreement with the dealer, your $99 reservation fee will be applied to the purchase price. If you decide, for any reason to cancel your order your deposit will be refunded to you in full and your vehicle will be offered to another consumer. If you are not contacted within the next seven days please contact smart USA directly either by e-mail at www.smartusa.com, or by phone at 1.800.smart.USA.

We look forward to you joining the nearly one million smart fortwo owners throughout the world. All of us from the smart USA team thank you for choosing the smart fortwo and we stand ready to assist you in any way possible.

Kind regards,

Dave Schembri
President, smart USA

For folks who have been eagerly awaiting the launch of the smart fortwo here in the USA, it would seem that today, January 10 is going to be their day. Sources report that smart dealers will be sent a list of some of the earliest reservation holders for the smart. In a parallel move, smart hq will be sending out an e-mail to reservation holders noting that dealers will be contacting them shortly. It would also appear that the "official" national launch will be January 14.

It was initially expected that smart dealers would be announced in December of 2007. That date slipped to early January after some snags were encountered with dealership contracts, state licensing, etc.

In terms of physical deliveries, smarties will have to wait a bit longer for their cars to arrive. However, by the end of January some fortwos should be in buyers' hands.

I'd like to note that all of the above information should be considered as speculative until official announcements have been made. As soon as ACATT receives word of contact from smart (rumored to be 12PM EST), it will be posted here.