-By Steve Miller

It's unlikely that you will see advertising for the Smart Car in the U.S. With a waiting list of a few months and expected sales of 30,000 cars this year, marketing is hardly a consideration at this point.

The coolest Smart Car TV ad comes via German agency Jung van Matt, Hamburg. The 30-second spot, "Gas can blues," features forlorn gas cans that are feeling low because they are being neglected. The root of their neglect is that the Smart Car-with its 40 mpg capability- doesn't have the need for them.

The spot opens with rain falling on a shack next to train tracks, where a weather-beaten plastic gas container is singing (in English) about its uselessness. Then more cans are shown in landfills, garages and in the back of laundry rooms. Finally, a Smart Car pulls out of a garage and the song ends.

"The only U.S. presence [the car] might have is on our Web site," said Dave Schembri, president of Smart USA, Bloomfield Hills, Mich., the exclusive distributor of the Smart Car in North America and Puerto Rico. "But we aren't advertising. We don't need to."

Smartusa.com already features several foreign-produced ads and can do so as long as global buy-out rights permit them. Last year, the Smartfortwo, Smart's offering in the U.S., was featured in a two-page ad in Rolling Stone, promoting Live Earth concerts. But that ad was paid for by Germany's Daimler, which owns Smart.