7 October 2008
News – Smart car fulfils its destiny
Smart is a car that has finally come of age. Ten years after the small iconic car first rolled off the production lines, sales in the UK have reached record levels.
It has been a long and bumpy road for the micro-car from Hambach, Germany though. When smart was launched in 1998 motoring experts dismissed the car as being no more than a gimmick and they said it would never catch on.
When smart’s inventor, Swiss watchmaker Nicolas G Hayek, first came up with the idea of creating a car that would be big enough to carry just a driver, a passenger and a bag of shopping few people took him seriously.
The car’s blueprints may have been filed away forever had Mercedes-Benz not taken an interest. They become co-partners with Hayek in the Micro Compact Car Company and the smart car started to become a reality.
As development got underway it soon became clear that Hayek’s vision for smart did not fit with the approach Mercedes was taking with the car. Disillusioned he withdrew from the project and sold his shares to Daimler.
Asked about his reasons for pulling out of the project Hayek commented: ‘The [smart] was supposed to be an eco-friendly, cheap small car with hybrid drive, but they turned it into a laughable small version of a Mercedes.’
Hayek felt the pricing strategy for the car was wrong. He had intended for the smart car to be aimed at the lower price segment. When the first generation smart finally came to market it seemed as though the motoring press were right. Smart fell far short of its sales forecasts throughout Europe.
As smart become an increasing problem for Daimler – who was already reeling from a troubled merger with The Chrysler Corporation - production of the smart roadster and 4-seat smart forfour was halted.
By 2005 Daimler was looking to cut its losses. It had already invested an estimated 8 billion euros in smart and it saw no sign of any return. 600 jobs losses were announced at smart’s headquarters and production facility in Germany.
For the next few years smart continued to sell at steady levels throughout Europe until a new generation smart fortwo was launched in 2007. New smart was far superior to the first model. Reengineered with Mercedes style refinements and features including: Electronic Stability Program (ESP), ABS brakes, driver and passenger airbags and a revolutionary new safety cell.
The timing of the new smart fortwo’s arrival couldn’t have been better. Faced with rising motoring costs, road congestion and with an increasing awareness of the impact that cars were having on the environment, customers wanted an alternative to the large, thirsty engineed cars they were driving.
A car ahead of it’s time, smart has finally come of age, with sales in the UK rocketing by 135% in the first half of 2008 over sales for the same period in 2007. Smart fortwos are to be fitted with micro hybrid drive and fuel-saving start-stop systems from Autumn 2008, undoubtedly driving demand for the smart even higher. A diesel fuelled smart will be launched in Spring 2009 and an electric-powered smart fortwo will go into mass production in 2010.
Hayek dreamt of an eco friendly, cheap small car with hybrid drive. Smart it seems is finally fulfilling its destiny.
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