An extract from an article in Anchorage Daily News

24.08.08

Included in the parcel by Diddy Hitchins, Anchorage, Alaska.

Smart cars appear on Anchorage streets.
German micro-minis attract lots of attention.
By George Bryson

There isn’t much to a Smart car, which measures four and a half feet shorter than a VW Beetle and could almost hide inside a Hummer.
Nor are there many smart cars in Alaska to talk about. They may be fabulously popular in parking-challenged Europe-where German manufacturer Mercedes Benz sells the little micro-cars at $12,000 apiece- but most Alaskans have probably never seen one.
At least that’s the impression UAA political science professor Diddy Hitchins gets whenever she takes her new Smart For Two convertible out for a spin. The little car is a magnet for gawkers.
“When I’m driving, I have people driving after me,” Hitchins said after one such outing in Anchorage.” I have people waving at me, tooting at me. And when I park, I have half a dozen people come up to speak to m every time.”
That never happened in her old Jeep Cherokee.
In at least one respect, Hitchins isn’t alone. Lots of other Alaskans- now paying the highest price for gasoline in the nation- have lately been downsizing their cars, too, parking their big pickups and SUV’s and opting for something smaller.

Holding its own

Hitchins says she initially grew interested in the Smart car in London, where she and her husband maintain a summer apartment. Apart from its fuel economy (the EPA rates it at 36mpg), low emissions and ease of parking, she was attracted by the fact that it’s the only vehicle that doesn’t have to pay London’s “congestion fee.”
She test drove one and found its interior surprisingly roomy, ay least for two people/. And although it’s short, it’s not low.
“You’re actually sitting higher than in most cars,” Hitchins says, “And you don’t feel fragile, because you have no sense you are in a small car.”
Maybe so, but that was in civilized England. How would the Smart car fare in America, let alone the winters of Alaska? So fare so good, Hitchins says.
She bought hers in Portland, Ore., in May (there are no dealers in Alaska) and immediately tested it on the highways.
“Coming up the freeway to Seattle, I purposely put myself in between these two great big semis… and I didn’t get wind-buffeting at all,” she says. “it sticks to the road. “It’s absolutely firm.”

Dream Parking
And don’t even get her started on how easy it is to park in downtown Anchorage, where she happily slips into spaces where no one else can fit. (The manufacturer’s brochure included pictures of two Smart cars parking bumper to bumper within a single parking space.)
“The nice thing is-when you park in a regular parking space and you centre yourself- there’s almost no chance that other people are going to bang into you,” Hitchins days.
Moreover her Smart car and her husband’s big Jeep Grand Cherokee fir comfortable, bumper to bumper inside the Hitchinses new single-car garage. OK, but that still leaves the test of Alaska’s winter.
Time will tell, Hitchins said.
She’s reassured by knowing Smart cars already have a proven winter track record in Germany and Canada, which get a fair share of snow themselves. All she needs now is for her personalized licence plates to show up u the mail.
What will they say?”TORTUS.”
Partly it’s a celebration of her life-long love of turtles, Hitchins said. And partly a statement about her car.
“It really does feel like you’re in a shell,” She said.
“Like I’m carrying my house on my back.”