With U.S. orders pouring in for its miniscule smart fortwo, Mercedes is wishing it hadn't cut the larger forfour from production. At the Detroit Auto Show, Benz honcho Rainer Schmückle revealed that a second-gen forfour was in consideration, although the decision hadn't been made to brand it as a smart or a Merc. Now MotorAuthority is showing a Schulte Design rendering of a potential successor to the forfour. Whereas the original was a reskinned Mitsubishi Colt with a conventional front-engine front-drive setup, this rendering suggests that the new model will be a stretched fortwo… rear engine and all. Don't take the rendering as gospel though, MB could well be pursuing other options. After all, pushing four passengers with a three-cylinder engine doesn't sound very… American.
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The problem with the original smart forfour was that it was hideously ugly and it wasn’t in keeping with the smart brand.
Small and simple is their mantra, anything more than that is just a mistake. That’s why the forfour (bad car) and roadster (good but overpriced car) were such miserable sales failures.
That looks reasonably useful, but once you add 4 passenger capability it needs to compete with the Fits and Yarises (Yarii?) and it loses its niche.
And if Canadian pricing is any indication, the Smart is already overpriced with only 2 seats. I really can’t see forfour succeeding in the market at its current price structure once it has lost its uber-small uniqueness.
The car in the picture would work for us but the engine would need to be a 1.2 four cylinder at least. Not more than a 1.8L which I think would be unecessary.
Emphasize to potential customers that this is a short distance car and not a cross country car unless the customer is replacing a ’68 Beetle. That way no matter how the customer uses it, it is a move up in convenience, comfort, and power.
I have an old Beetle so I’m not bashing them too badly. VBG!
The only issue I see here is that it puts them directly in competition of existing vehicles like the Yaris, Fit, Accent and Rio. The prices the Smart is going for will be very hard to justify in that light.
I’m really hoping that Smart can find their groove and succeed but I think this may be the wrong way to head at this point.
I have a SmartTwo on reservation. It will strictly be a commuter car. Yes, I will losd it up with every option. No it desn’t get the best gas mileage. But, If I want to carry 4 people, I will use my Jetta or Durango.
What I don’t understand is Smart used to do a version of the forfour which was based on a Mitsubishi Colt platform. It looked reasonable, and drove ok, it was just overpriced (nearly £12K!) which led to its downfall. Fundamentally, it was an ok car, just stupidly priced.
If Smart re-sold that in the US and used economies of scale to bring the price down (or even build it in the US?) I reckon they’d have a winner.
Trouble is, if Toyota bring their Aygo over there, it’ll be game over in the “cute, funky city car” segment…..