True Strife: I Drive a Smart Car

Major conflicts exist all over the world.  Unfortunately, I have my fair share of them. My conflicts include my girlfriend vs. my fashion sense or lack thereof, and my social reputation vs. my car. Since my girlfriend always gets her way in terms of my clothing choices, let’s talk about the latter and more pressing issue. As the title of this post states, I, a self-proclaimed car guy, drive a 2008 Smart Passion ForTwo  painted in ULAS J1120+0641 Quasar Yellow. In simple terms, it’s brighter than Sergey Karjakin (pronounced Car-Yack-in, not Car-Jack-In, though my car has experienced both). I guess that’s not that simple, but just know that it’s really, really bright.

Now that my reputation amongst car people has been completely torn down, it’s time to build it back up again with a brief history of the Smart brand. The brand was conceived by Swatch CEO Nicolas Hayek. His original goal was to create a car with interchangeable plastic color panels to suit the mood of the owner, similar to his watch trim. Volkswagen was Mr. Hayek’s original partner on the project but dove out early.  The project was then picked up by Daimler-Benz, who after losing a large sum of money, bought the Smart brand outright. Two things can be brought up with this history: [keep reading]