Look Ma, no roof! Or windscreen!
Smart, that company that Mercedes-Benz made to focus on small cars that everyone forgets exists, is celebrating its second decade of existence this year in case you didn't know. And to mark (out) the occasion, they’ve decided to go nuts and make an entrance at this years’ Paris motor show with this, a beheaded Smart ForTwo.
Okay, it’s actually called the Smart ForEase concept, and it’s very much a traditional speedster. You won’t find any kind of folding top or even an optional top: It’s open-top motoring all the time, whether you like it or not. The headless profile has been emphasised with the lowering of the windscreen which, if we’re honest, kind of unbalances a design that we thought was pretty cute and fetching as it stood.
The ForEase might be a concept car in name and appearance, what with the motorshow-ready lights, bumpers, and alloys, but it’s actually no more than a heavily-revised electric Smart ForTwo. The running gear’s all the same too with a 60kW motor between the wheels and a 17.6kWh battery hiding somewhere in that pert body. Smart themselves even say that it drives like the all-electric production car, though why that’s important we’re not entirely sure.
The whole car has adopted a white/grey/green colour scheme, from the outside and into the cabin. Inside you’ll find that green around the infotainment screen and on the back of the seats, while the air conditioning vents have been repurposed to house screens because with no roof, you won’t need climate control.
Smart says that the ForEase concept “embodies a refreshingly simple form of driving fun in the city,” though we’re pretty sure that’s what the original car set out to do. Furthermore with very little likelihood of this (or a variation of this) ever making production, we can’t help but wonder why Smart didn’t just bake a big birthday cake for themselves with white/grey/green icing on it. It’d be about as significant as this car, anyway.
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