The original Smart City Coupé was one of the most revolutionary vehicles of the past quarter century – and a huge commercial failure.
When the innovative miniature was first launched in 1998, Smart’s parent company, Daimler, predicted that cities would be designed around it – something that seemed genuinely possible, given its dinky dimensions and radical styling. But despite receiving generous backing for more than two decades, Smart never achieved commercial success, nor reportedly ever made a profit – and BMW’s much less technically adventurous Mini brand outsold it by more than three to one.
That’s a quick way of explaining why, although the branding of the Smart #1 is familiar, almost everything else is different. This is another roll of the dice, an all-new electric crossover that’s the first product from a joint venture between Mercedes-Benz and Geely, the Chinese giant that also owns Lotus, Polestar and Volvo.