Smart is seriously thinking about something that once sounded impossible — bringing production back to Europe. Smart Europe boss Wolfgang Ufer said it out loud. There is only one condition: the market has to prove the game is worth the candle.
Today’s Smart is no longer the German brand fans grew up with. After Mercedes-Benz sold half of the business to China’s Geely, the development and assembly of every current model moved east. The crossovers, SUVs and sedans wearing the Smart badge all arrive from China. And plenty of die-hards still cannot make peace with that.
The new Smart #2 is due in Europe next year. The price — under €22,500. That is just €500 more than the outgoing Fortwo cost in 2024, when production was pulled. And the battery and range, the brand promises, will roughly double.
Smart’s ace in the hole is an army of loyal Fortwo owners waiting for an heir. In Italy alone, nearly 600,000 units have been sold since 1998, and around 90 percent are still on the road. In Germany the surviving Fortwo fleet is somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 cars. That is the audience Ufer is betting on.
Germany is named as the #2’s key market. Italy, France, the UK, Spain and Portugal follow. And if Europeans really vote with their wallets — the little car’s production may well come home to its native continent. The only question left is whether demand will be big enough.
