[stovt001]

Smart cars are flying off the lots at extremely high premiums here, despite their mediocre gas mileage and awful transmissions. I figure there are enough fools GM can take money from, especially if the Spark is more friendly to drive than the Smart.

The Viva is going to have to be pretty darn good. The Fit is simply a brilliant car, and the Fiesta looks to possibly be even better. It may not have much to worry about with the Yaris/xD and Versa, but Honda and Ford really do have the segment leaders there.

I'm also interested in seeing how the Cruze does against the Focus. The Focus is one of the best selling cars in Europe. The Cruze is very large, almost a midsize, so it will probably be more for customers looking for room and not at all interested in performance. If Ford brings over one of the high performance Focus variants from Europe, I may just jump ship for one of those.