Object: Smart City Coupè

Designer: Smart Design Team

Producer: Smart (1998 to present)

When it was first launched, the Smart Car was a surprising sight on the streets because it hardly resembled a typical car, but was to transform ideas of how to negotiate urban mobility.
It was the reult of the high ideals of Nicolas Hayek, CEO of Swatch, who wanted to produce an affordable and environmentaly friendly alternative to the average car.

In 1994 Hayek established a joint venture with Daimler-Benz, after initially approaching VW.
The young Harald Belker, upon leaving his first job at Porsche for Daimler-Benz, began working with a team to develop Hayek’s idea.
The Smart City-Coupè, a 2-seater, was premied in 1997 at the IAA in Frankfurt, the prestigious International Motor Show.

Production began immediately after in 1998 at a pourpose-built factory called Smartville in Hambach, France.
Te car was designed with the ecology in mind and therefore is costructed by synthetic preassembled modules, atached to a rigid integral body frame (such as in the concept of the old 2CV by Citroën). The Smart ecology policiy is focused on energy efficiency, using sustainable raw materials and recycling its used components.
The car also used powder-coating, a more environmentally friendly method of painting, that uses 40% less energy with no solvent emissions. The Smart design team limited the speed to 135 Km/h, as they believed that this was the best balance between safety and usabilty, but this also made Smart the most efficient petrol car on the road. Initially, consumer reception was lukewarm, and sales were lower than the 1998 forecast of 200.000 predicted by Hayek.
The public felt it was slightly too expensive compare to most 4-seater cars, and the technology did not offer anything particularly new.
As only 20.000 were sold, Swatch decided to pull out of the venture, but they seem to have acted too quickly, since sales of the car and growth of its models have since exploded.
The Smart-Car now owned by Daimler-Chrysler, is ideal for negotiating cities weighed down by trafic and for squeezing into minute parking spaces.

Interstingly enough, Harald Belker’s later work was the antithesis of the Smart Car, as he went to design the Batmobile for the Batman movies, among numerous other flamboyant designes for the silver screen.

UN PARERE POPOLARE per un AUTO POP
Estate ‘98. Di fronte alla Coop di Via Curiel a Forlì.
Mio nonno si avvicina incuriosito al nuovo prodotto della tecnologia automobilistica.
Aggrotta le sopracciglia.
Bussa dolcemente sulla carrozzeria della smart con le nocche della mano destra per saggiarne la consistenza: “Ma?! …l’è ad plastica!!!“