CarBrandLogos archive · Smart · 1998

SmartCity-Coupé / Fortwo

A watch company's idea for a city car, built by Mercedes and 2.5 metres long.

Photo: Vauxford · CC BY-SA 4.0

The story

A defining chapter in Smart history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Smart City-Coupé / Fortwo, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

The Smart began with Nicolas Hayek, who had rescued the Swiss watch industry with the Swatch and believed the same logic applied to cars: a small, cheap, fashion-led object with interchangeable coloured parts. He needed a car company. After Volkswagen walked away, Mercedes-Benz took the project on, and the joint venture built a purpose-made factory at Hambach in France, nicknamed Smartville, with suppliers assembling modules on site.

2008 Smart Fortwo Coupe BRABUS 01 · Hatsukari715 · Public domain

Design and engineering

The engineering answer to a car under 2.5 metres long was the Tridion cell, a visibly exposed steel safety structure finished in a contrasting colour, with plastic body panels clipped to it that could in theory be swapped in an afternoon. The engine, a tiny turbocharged three-cylinder, sat under the boot floor driving the rear wheels, which freed the whole front of the car to act as a crush structure. That was the crucial argument: the Smart had to survive impacts with vehicles three times its weight, and it did.

2008 Smart For Two Pure IIHS · Brady Holt · CC BY 3.0

2008 Smart For Two Passion convertible -- 04-22-2011 2

In production

Stability was the crisis. Prototypes performed badly in avoidance testing of the kind that had just embarrassed the Mercedes A-Class, and the launch was delayed while the track was widened, the suspension retuned and electronic stability control made standard, which it was not on most ordinary cars at the time. The car reached the market in 1998, and the fashion-driven volumes Hayek had forecast never appeared. The automated manual gearbox, which paused noticeably at every shift, drew more complaints than anything else and put off a great many buyers who liked everything else about the car.

2008 Smart For Two Passion convertible -- 04-22-2011 2 · IFCAR · Public domain

Legacy

Ownership economics never quite worked either. A car this small was expected to be cheap, but building a bespoke safety structure and a bespoke factory is not cheap, so the Smart cost more than superminis with twice the seats and far more luggage space. Buyers who chose one were making a statement about cities rather than a calculation about value. What it did achieve was the reinvention of city parking. In Rome, Paris and London a Fortwo could be parked nose-in to the kerb in gaps nothing else could use, and it became a genuine urban tool rather than a novelty. Later generations went electric, the third was co-developed with Renault's Twingo, and Daimler eventually moved Smart into a joint venture with Geely building larger electric crossovers. Production of the Fortwo ended in 2024, and the successor, the Smart #2, has almost nothing in common with it beyond a badge.

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Produced

1998–2007

Body

3-door hatchback

Technical specification

The City-Coupé / Fortwo, in detail.

Production: 1998–2007 (MkI); 2006–2014 (MkII); 2014–2024 (MkIII)
Class: City car; Microcar
Body style: 3-door hatchback; 2-door convertible
Layout: Rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive; Rear-motor, rear-wheel-drive (electric version)
Assembly: France: Hambach (Smartville)
Manufacturer: Daimler-Benz (1998); DaimlerChrysler (1998–2007); Daimler AG (2007–2022); Mercedes-Benz Group (2022–2024)