No doors, no rear window and an open roof - the Smart FourJoy study (smartspeak for a concept) dispenses with unnecessary ballast. Daimler says this compact four-seater - due to debut next week at the Frankfurt motor show - is the forerunner of a new Smart generation, implying that we are about to see the reincarnation of the ill-fated Smart ForFour as a battery-powered city-car.
It's certainly compact enough at 3494mm long, 1978mm wide and 1494mm high, agile enough with a turning circle of 9.1 metres and clean/green enough with a 55kW magneto-electric drivetrain.
All the original Smart design elements are there - extremely short overhangs, wheels pushed out to the corners, tail lights built into the tridion safety cell and the spherical instrument cluster.
Smart boss Annette Winkler said: “The exterior proportions already reveal a lot about our four-seater production Smart, which will be launched at the end of 2014.”
INTERIOR BY IKEA