🔒Prime Motor Cars makes Smart move

Dan Doucette, general manager of Mercedes at Prime Motor Cars in Scarborough, expects its line of Smart cars and RVs will bring in young, urban customers and help the luxury automaker appeal to a whole new generation of consumers.

Prime Motor Cars hopes thinking small will make it big. The company's Mercedes-Benz dealership in Scarborough plans to start selling the tiny Smart car this August. The aim, says Mercedes General Manager Dan Doucette, is to attract a younger customer to the new microcar, and possibly to its existing inventory of luxury Mercedes. The Smart car also helps Mercedes meet federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy or CAFE regulations.

The car, which measures about 106 inches long by 61 inches high by 61 inches wide, has been selling elsewhere for $12,500 and up for the gas model and $35,000 for the electric version. Prime Mercedes is dedicating 600 square feet to display the car in its 2,800-square-foot expansion space, now being built at a cost of $750,000. That space also will house a showroom for the Mercedes Airstream Interstate RV, for which Prime Mercedes ranks 10th in sales in the country, and the new AMG Performance Center. The dealership will be the second in the country to have the Smart car, Mercedes, AMG Performance Center, Airstream RV and Mercedes Sprinter commercial van.

Mainebiz spoke recently with Doucette about the dealership's two firsts in Maine: the Smart car and AMG Performance Center. Following is an edited transcript:

Mainebiz: What is the rationale behind selling the Smart car here and what kind of demand do you expect?

Dan Doucette: We're just south of Portland, and Portland's a college town, so I feel there's a lot of interest for this type of car in this market. I think we'll probably sell five a month, which is a significant number. The reason the Smart car is so important to Mercedes-Benz is because of CAFE. The Smart car has great fuel mileage, and that brings CAFE into line.

MB: When did you start thinking about adding the Smart car, and what kind of market studies did you do?

DD: Two years ago. It's going to bring additional people into the showroom that normally wouldn't come into a Mercedes store. I want to invite everybody. We have new products, but we also have pre-owned cars. So the Smart car will bring a different kind of clientele into the store and if they don't buy Smart, maybe they'll buy something else. I did no market study.

MB: How is the leg room in the Smart car?

DD: I'm 6 feet 2 inches. I sat in it and was comfortable. All kinds of people drive Smart cars. We've sold pre-owned ones already, to older buyers as well. It's not the kind of car you're going to commute to Massachusetts with every day. It's more of a city car. It gets great fuel mileage, has a high safety rating and it's easy to park.

MB: Do you foresee a shift to Smart cars and away from pickup trucks in Maine?

DD: No, not at all.

MB: Will you hire any new people to handle the Smart car?

DD: We'll start with two new employees [added to 40 now], probably a salesperson and a technician. With the AMG program and the Smart car, we'll probably add another two next year. The staff for both will be the same.

MB: Describe the AMG Performance Center.

DD: It's for high-performance Mercedes-Benz models. It gets us additional special training and inventory that we desperately need. So we'll have a segment of the new showroom dedicated to display AMG performance vehicles. Now, every AMG vehicle we get we sell instantly. It's the high-performance version of just about any model we now sell. It has better handling, more power and higher-end interior components.