Smart Is Thinking About Building a Brand-New Roadster

Long before microcar manufacturer Smart entered — and then once again left — the U.S. market, the Mercedes subsidiary built a sports car. The rear-engined, three-cylinder Smart Roadster lasted just four years, but its Lotus-beating weight and memorable design made it a cult classic among tiny sports car enthusiasts throughout Europe. But while the Roadster has been gone for nearly two decades, it may not be gone forever.

In an interview with the United Kingdom's Autocar, Smart Europe CEO Dirk Adelmann says that the former city car manufacturer's reinvention could involve a resurrection of the Roadster. Adelmann says that a Roadster resurrection has been discussed since at least 2020, noting that “[Smart has] three great cars and none of them is a Roadster, but why not?"

The modern Smart is an EV manufacturer co-owned by original founders Mercedes-Benz and Geely, the parent company of Polestar, Lotus, and Volvo. Its entire current lineup is made up of crossovers, but the brand is already working on a successor to the ForTwo microcar that made the company famous in the early 2000s. A Roadster would be an unusual next step, but the brand is ripe for reinvention — and the lineup certainly has room for something more radical.

Smart's current lineup of crossovers is relatively large for a company with roots in city cars, but a new Roadster would not be. Adelmann says that any resurrection of the Roadster would be "very compact" and remain a two-seater, although the brand's current identity as a manufacturer of electric cars means that the next Roadster would likely weigh more than the sub-1,800-pound original. Unfortunately, since Smart no longer sells cars in the U.S., the second-generation Roadster would be as unlikely to reach the States as the first.

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