DaimlerChrysler has felled the axe on the SMART ForFour. The Netherlands-assembled four door built in conjunction with Mitsubishi Motors will go by the wayside as part of the brand's 1 billion Euro ($1.2B USD) restructuring effort.
The unusual-for-a-Saturday announcement heralding the demise of the ForFour means that a second model is exiting SMART showrooms (the SMART Roadster has just been sold to Project Kimber), leaving the original micro-sized ForTwo to soldier on alone.
DCX announced earlier this month that it expects to level Smart's serially-red balance sheets in 2007.
[Source: Reuters UK and SMART]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Robert Brodrecht @ Mar 25th 2006 1:48PM
Uh... So smart is only going to have the ForTwo? Unless the ForTwo is running at full production to keep up with demand and the Roadster and ForFour are running at almost zero production and still stock piling, killing off 2/3 of the product line seems silly. Restructuring for plant sharing of the ForFour and Roadster (and maybe the ForTwo, depending on how many they sell) and reducing their production numbers would have made more sense.
But I'm sure they know more about it than I do. Maybe they are going to introduce a new product sometime?
John @ Mar 25th 2006 2:16PM
Aahhh, can someone please update this post so that it doesn't refer to "red" balance sheets? It's the income statement that is red or black... thanks :)
Carpenter @ Mar 25th 2006 4:10PM
Looks like Mitsubishi is going to have some nice excess production capacity for Colt cars.
Wonder if they'd like to sell them in the United States and really surprise everyone else?
I believe the Colt is quite a lot larger inside than one thinks.
Wouldn't this make a great competitor to Scion?
Perhaps Mitsu could badge them as "Colt" just as Scion is a different badge. In some markets, Mitsu did not try to use their name originally, but sold their cars as "Colt" (I think the UK is one place where they did this 20 or so years ago).
Galley @ Mar 26th 2006 8:02AM
Well, so much for the ForFour coming to the U.S.!
goat @ Mar 26th 2006 10:40AM
I think this is a good move. The forfour doesn't make any sense...it's more a rebadged Mitsubishi than anything. It's FWD and otherwise not terribly unique.
goat @ Mar 26th 2006 10:41AM
I think this is a good move. The forfour doesn't make any sense...it's more a rebadged Mitsubishi than anything. It's FWD and not terribly unique.
jeffrey bennett @ Mar 27th 2006 4:12PM
If they sold them in the US they would sell a million of them in a year