I like that plan Squint; where are you getting your lights from? Was it an expensive project?

 

It's not that I've become bored with my TCH in particular... it's that I get bored with ANY car after a year or so. I really love the TCH and enjoy it as much now as ever, but have already reserved a smart ForTwo due to arrive in early 2008. As a micro-car fanatic-nut (and twice-former Isetta owner), the TCH is way, way too big for me.

I think that the early posts were so prolific because many issues remained to be addressed. Now we have a huge database of info, so the repetition of many posts is no longer necessary.

 

Well, there is an entire HID retrofitting car subculture that one of my friends is into. He had rare clear projector lenses from a 300ZX and ballasts. I haven't paid him yet but I think the fair market value for those two items would be $200-250. Bulbs were around $60 and the projectors were $175. Those projectors and clear lenses are the equivalent of S2000 projectors which are considered the very best available ($400).

The results are supposed to be a lot better than a kit with not that much more cost but a whole lot of labor.

 

Wow! I did not know that they were going to be selling the Smart here. Let us know how that one works out! BTW...my best friend gave me a bit of payback tonight. I am constantly telling him "I got XXX miles on this tank of gas." He called me tonight excited about his first 400 mile tank....on his Expedition. 13.3 MPG! I guess I am averaging him out!!!

 

One guy had a defective inverter. Can't remember the other issue off the top of my head.

 

And what about the interior light project? Where were you purchasing those? Was that a challenge at all?

 

A couple of weeks ago, reservations became available for "Insiders" (go to smartusa.com to become an insider), and will soon be available to the general public. It costs $99 to reserve a smart ForTwo, and the cars will be available starting in early-2008.

 

Thanks!

 

Couldn't agree more... I've been on this forum for ~7 months now (admittedly much less active than before); the initial posts were all about discoveries from excited new owners, rich with very useful knowledge sharing discussions. Nowadays half of the posts seem to be repeats, trying to bring newer owners up to speed...

 

Having test driven a SmartForTwo, and knowing you had/have a Lexus too, I was going to warn you about how the moderate power of these things gets old quickly, but having Googled Isetta, I change my mind. I actually had ridden in an Isetta before (not that I knew what it was called until just now because it was a long while ago).

Anyway, the one I test drove had paddle shifters with an automatic clutch. Doing paddle shifting instead of letting the car do it itself was probably the most fun driving it, and when it got tiring just put it back to auto shifting. It was fun but although I've become a lot more patient driver with my TCH, I haven't reached SmartForTwo patience level yet.