Bloom Off the smart Rose?

As regular readers might recall, I was in the first batch of smart fortwo reservation holders to receive a car back in January of this year. I actually didn’t buy the smart because it just didn’t pencil out financially. However, to occupy myself I did get on a waiting list for any future orphans. My intentions are twofold: Firstly, I like to keep my options open and secondly, I like to keep tabs on how the car is selling.

I am only on a list for convertibles but I did not specify a color preference, so I usually get a call whenever a convertible has been refused by the person who ordered it. In the past I have received calls from the San Jose dealership every few weeks, but lately there has been an uptick in the frequency to almost every week. Today for the first time I received a second call in the same week from the dealership. Currently at the smart center in San Jose they have three convertibles and they have offered them to me twice, something that hasn’t happened before.

Certainly the market turmoil/credit crunch has impacted all auto sales and I’m sure that is part of the equation, but I also have to wonder if demand for the fortwo will continue to be as robust? It’s one thing to plunk down a refundable $99 deposit and certainly early reservationists were very keen on the car. However, now that most of those early adopters are driving around in a new smart, I have to wonder what the future prospects will be? If smart can keep things interesting by offering variants such as a Brabus performance or some sort of hybrid/electric options then sales can probably be propped up, but I don’t think smart can support 20-30k units per year indefinitely in the USA without a wider product portfolio. Adding to smart’s worries would be competitors such as Toyota’s iQ should it become available in this market.

In this cut-throat business, you can only have a niche to yourself for a very short period of time before other brands start wanting a piece of the pie.