“That’s very important, because this team makes sure that we have a European product that is ready for European customers,” said Adelmann.
Adelmann also gave more details about the upcoming #2, which earlier this month was confirmed for a launch next year.
Despite its name, that car will sit below the £29,960 #1 and slot in at the premium end of the small electric car market, which has taken off since the launch of the Renault 5 earlier this year.
Asked if the Smart’s naming strategy would now become confusing for buyers, given that the smallest car in the range, the #2, was numbered higher than the larger #1 crossover, Adelmann said: “Our nomenclature is a bit odd. The even numbers we reserved for non-SUVs. So the smallest non-SUV body type number is a #2. Yes, it’s higher than #1, but so be it.”
He said the idea for a Fortwo successor has been in the works since 2019: “It was mainly a cost topic. We were calculating business cases as early as 2019. We found a way.”
On the decision to bring it back, he added: “You can live without the icon, without the brand-defi ning vehicle. I don’t say it’s the nucleus of the brand, but it’s a big, big portion of the brand.”
Adelmann did, however, admit Smart was “late” in bringing the car to market. “We always were trying to make it feasible, but it took us three years longer than expected,” he said. “Better late than never.”
Asked what it means to Smart to bring back the Fortwo, he said: “We have 2.2 million Fortwo and Forfour customers in Europe who are really waiting for a reinterpretation of the twoseater. We have had a retail network that is crying out for a Fortwo successor over the past two years.”
Around the same time as the launch of the #2, Smart will begin rolling out major updates for the #1 and #3. Adelmann said the first, which will happen next year, will be a “big” model-year update focusing on “some” hardware changes. This will be followed by “an even bigger facelift” in 2027.