Smart, the Micro Car from German - car review; Smart Car is a division of Daimler AG. Smart is a German manufacturer of products of micro-Hambach, France, and Boeblingen, Germany. Smart is marketed as "smart" in lowercase, with the Smart brand logo in 2010, which denotes a letter "c" for "compact" car and an arrow for "forward-looking" car.
In the late 1980s, began SMH (watchmakers Swatch) CEO Nicolas Hayek develop an idea for a new car with the same type of manufacturing strategies and custom attributes are used to popularize Swatch watches. He believed that the auto industry had ignored a sector of potential customers who wanted a small elegant city. This idea quickly became known as "Swatchmobile". Hayek Hayek Engineering AG, a private company began designing the new car at SMH, with room for two and a hybrid powertrain.
Although the design of the Smart skidded, Hayek feared existing producers would feel threatened by the Swatchmobile. Thus, rather than directly competing, he prefers to work with another company in the automotive industry. This would also relieve Smith of the cost burden to establish a distribution network. Hayek wrote several automakers and July 3, 1991, he signed an agreement with Volkswagen to share the development of new project.
In 1993, Ferdinand Piech had been director of Volkswagen, and he immediately tried to stop the project with SMH. Volkswagen had already worked on their own three-liter car ": a car that would use three gallons of fuel per 100 km of driving (the Volkswagen Lupo 3L final). Volkswagen concept was seen as a better business proposition, with four seats and more cargo room.
Hayek was suspected that Piëch would try to end his reign with the SMH, the position of CEO, and that's why subtly begun to approach the other car companies Swatchmobile project. Rejected, BMW, Fiat, General Motors and Renault, has finally got an informal agreement, Daimler-Benz AG, a maker of Mercedes-Benz.
An agreement was announced on March 4, 1994, during a press conference at the headquarters of Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart that the companies have joined forces with the founding of Micro Compact Car AG (MCC). 49% of the initial capital of 50 million Swiss francs has been provided by SMH and the remaining 51% by Daimler-Benz. The company had two subsidiaries, MCC GmbH in Renningen (a suburb of Stuttgart), who design the car and then nameless factory. SMH Auto SA, owned by Hayek, is the design of a hybrid electric propulsion system of the car, while the control Hayek Engineering design and manufacturing.
The press conference also presented the debut of two concept cars: the eco-sprinter and eco-speedster, designed by design studio Mercedes-Benz in California. The cars were reminiscent of the final Smart City-Coupe. No mention was made that Smith had no input in the formulation of these concepts and were badged as Mercedes-Benz.
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