Smart Car Turns Heads, Saves Gas for a Primerica Home Office Employee’s Daily Commute

Primerica Home Office employee Cathy Falls describes her husband David as a “car nut.” He was the first person in Atlanta to buy the revolutionary new Smart Car and assumed he would use it in his daily commute… or so he thought.

“It was his car but I took it from him” Cathy laughs. “It’s more practical for me. It’s an around town car – I use it for commuting to work, going shopping, going to the grocery store or picking up the dry cleaning. For around town, you can’t beat it.”

Cathy drives the Smart Car 14 miles each way from her home to the Primerica Home Office in Duluth, GA. She says her car gets about 44 miles to the gallon and she only needs to fill up the 8.5-gallon gas tank about once every three weeks. “I don’t think about gas anymore,” Cathy admits. “I’ll look down and realize I am almost on empty and go fill up again for about $20. It’s great! I’d rather buy shoes than pay for gas!”

The Smart Car has been available in Europe for years but it was only recently introduced to U.S. consumers. Smart Car enthusiasts must get on a wait list and the buying process is much different than a typical car dealership. Cathy and her husband picked out their car online and added all the extras they wanted. They paid a $99 reservation fee and waited for their car to be custom built for them and shipped to the United States. It arrived in Atlanta in March 2008 and they said the dealership really rolled out the red carpet when they went to pick it up.

“Smart stands for Swatch Mercedes Art,” Cathy explains. “Swatch because you can change out the color of the exterior trim panels like you can customize a Swatch Watch. Mercedes because it’s designed by Mercedes. And Art because the makers see the car as a work of art. It’s an icon.”

Cathy says she’s not intimidated driving this tiny car on Atlanta’s notoriously congested highways. “This car is incredibly safe,” she explains. “It has four airbags and a steel roll cage.” Besides being safe, Cathy says the car is also just really fun to drive. “It’s like a race car. You can shift using paddle shifters, use the manual transmission or use the default automatic transmission. It’s also very fast.”

Because of her head-turning car, Cathy says she’s never met a stranger – everyone wants to talk to her about her unique wheels.  “That’s my favorite part about this car,” Cathy admits. “I like waving, smiling and being friendly. I’ve let people sit in it and even drive it. People are always smiling and waving at me when I drive this car!”