• by Karl Greenberg , April 3, 2009

Penske Automotive Group's Smart USA brand has signed a deal in New York, where parking a car can be a full-time job even when the car is only 8.8 feet long. New York private parking company Central Parking System, Inc. will offer half-price parking for Smart Fortwo owners. With this latest partnership, four companies are now offering discounted parking for Smart.

Central Parking has more than 350 parking lots and garages in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and New Jersey, and is the largest parking company in the area. Smart already has similar arrangements with Meyers Parking and Icon Parking Systems in Manhattan, and with AviStar Airport Parking, with lots at both JFK and LaGuardia Airports.

Ken Kettenbeil, director of communications, says the company wants to take the program to other major markets. "Right now, the partnerships are only in New York City, but we are looking to expand. We have meetings with national parking companies, so that's the plan right now," he says.

Kettenbeil says the company is speaking to owners about the parking deals via email, and that dealers are doing their own programs to promote them. "It's our dealers who really brought the ideas and the partnerships to us; they viewed it as huge advantage," he says. As of now, Smart does no national advertising, but did launch a dealer coop ad program. "So, some of them have started local advertising and are doing lots of different events."

The company, which has sold over 27,000 of the Smart Fortwo vehicles since January 2008, reports that there are around 4,000 Smart owners in the metropolitan New York market. The company has six Smart dealerships in the tri-state area, including in Manhattan, Roslyn and Smithtown, N.Y., Edison and Englewood, N.J., and Fairfield, Conn.

Smart sold 1,746 cars last month -- a 1% uptick versus March last year -- and 4,937 cars this quarter, a 42% increase versus the first quarter of last year, when the vehicle entered the U.S. The company may have an uphill battle, however -- especially if gas prices stay low -- if a new report from AutoTrader.com is predictive.

The firm's March trend report showed that despite government and environmental advocacy groups touting the benefits of smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, of the top 20 new vehicles viewed on AutoTrader.com last month, most were either large sedans or trucks, with exactly half offering consumers V8 power as either standard or optional.

Trucks and SUVs also lead the top 20 used vehicles list on AutoTrader.com, with 11 of the top 20 spots. Vehicles with a four-cylinder option accounted for only seven of the top 20 spots of vehicles viewed on AutoTrader.com last month.