What's the news?
Smart, a sister brand of Mercedes in the Daimler empire, specialising in very small city cars (not officially sold in Ireland), is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year and will mark the occasion at the Paris Motor Show next week by unveiling this, the Smart Forease. It's a two-seat roadster based loosely on the current Smart Fortwo, with much more of the bodywork removed than in the existing Fortwo Cabrio.
It's highly likely that the Forease previews where Smart design is going in the next few years, which appears to be toward a smoother and more cohesive looking body with less focus on the so-called Tridion safety cell and possibly including funky new integrated door handles. The interior of the concept, white and green colour scheme aside, is relatively unchanged for the show car, lending some credence to the possibility of such a model making production in the future for certain markets.
If it does, there's no doubt that the Forease will be purely battery-driven, as Smart already is a purely EV company in Norway, the USA and Canada - and will be so in Europe by 2020.
Anything else?
Smart has form in this 'impractical open-topped city cars with no roof' arena. Its 2001 Crossblade concept made it into limited production a year later due to demand, with no doors, roof or windscreen. Back in 2011, the Smart Forspeed concept was revealed to preview the company's foray into electric power, but its body style never made it to the showroom.