Daimler And Renault To Produce Smart Twins

Cammy Corrigan
by Cammy Corrigan
daimler and renault to produce smart twins

Yesterday, we wrote about how Dieter Zetsche needs to start earning his retirement. He took the suggestion to heart. Automobilemag.com has it that the long rumoured liaison between Daimler and Renault will finally bear fruits. Daimler and Renault will have baby twins!

Daimler and Renault-Nissan have at long last reached an agreement to jointly develop the next generation of veeeery small cars by 2014. The resulting car will be branded Smart by Daimler and whatever Renault-Nissan see fit. Apparently, the reason for why these talks kept stalling was that Daimler insisted on sticking to a rear-engine, rear wheel drive layout. Which was kind of, well, foreign to the usually very FWD folks at Renault.

According to the report, Renault will have the leading role in engineering, purchasing and production of the lilliputian-on-wheels. Daimler pretty much outsourced the production and engineering of their smallest offspring. Another development of this agreement is that electric powertrains will play a big role. Renault wants to use its knowledge from its electric fleet on the new car. Petrol engines will also be in the mix, with the choice of three cylinder, 1.0 litre, direct injection, turbocharged engine and a 1.3 & 1.5 litre four cylinder ones.

Busrep.co.za reports that Daimler and Renault (they call them “Peugeot” – those French all look alike, especially from South Africa, and when you copy something from the German edition of the Financial Times) will cross-share production at Renault’s plant in Slovenia (Peugeot don’t have a plant in Slovenia). The Financial Times says that the new version of the Smart car will share the platform with the Twingo, which is currently made in the Slovenian factory. By Renault. According to the FTD, the 4 door version of the Smart/Twingo will be made in Slovenia. The 2 door version of the new baby twins may be produced in the original Smart works in Hambach, France. “Before joint production in Hambach starts, there are many problems to overcome,” says the FTD. “The capacity of the plant is limited, There are numerous open details which must be solved between Daimler and Renault.” Earn your keep, Dr. Z!

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  • Lokki Lokki on Feb 19, 2010

    Must resist.... must not MUST NOT ... yield to temptation to post Dumb and Dumber Smart-car joke.... Must... resi

  • Don1967 Don1967 on Feb 20, 2010

    Adorable baby twin sisters = 3 responses. Adorable 20-year old twin sisters = server crash. Car guys never change.

  • Crown They need to put the EcoDiesel back in the Grand Cherokee. I have a 2018 and it has been the most reliable vehicle I ever owned. 69,000 miles and only needed tires, and regular oil and fuel filter changes.
  • El scotto Y'all are overthinking this. Find some young hard-charging DA seeking the TV limelight to lock this kid up. Heck, have John Boehner come up from Cincy to help the young DA get his political career going. Better yet, have the young DA spin this as hard as he or she can; I'm the candidate for Law and Order, I defied our go-easy office and leadership to get this identified criminal locked up. Oh this could be spun more than a hyper active kid's top.Now I'd do some consulting work for Little Kings Original Cream Ale and Skyline Chili.
  • El scotto Pondering if he has a clean brandy snifter. Well but, ah, I mean the original Grand Wagoneer was fully loaded and had a V-8. The original Grand Wagoneer had an almost cult-like following with a certain type of woman. Attractive, educated high earning women; or those that put on the appearances of being that way.Our esteemed HerR DOKtor Perfessor again shows how ignorant he is of the American market. What he deems "bread-vans on stilts" are highly coveted by significant others that are also highly coveted. The new Grand Cherokee with the new well engineered V-6 will sell as well as the ones from the 80s some of us get wistful over. The only real question will be: LL Bean or Orvis edition?
  • El scotto Well, I've had cats that are smarted than a great many members of congress. I rather doubt that any of the congresspeople Matt named are engineers, finance people or project managers. Ya know, professionals you call in to get a job done.Today is Wednesday, this will be out of the 36 hour news cycle by Friday. Oh it might get mentioned again on OCT 6. Unless there are cute animals to put on TV that day.
  • El scotto Oh My Good Lord Yes! Gents, this is a Caddy that carries on the soul of Caddy. Loud, brash, and apologetically American. Also large and in charge and one of GM's best evah engines. What used to be a flash roll is now bottle service.Can't deal with that reality? There are plenty of excellent SUVs/CUVs on the market. I'm a former Escape owner. The Escape was a sensible lil CUV, this Caddy is just way over the top.Canyon carver? Not a chance, this is based on a Silverado frame. Easy to park? Toss the valet the keys. Will some of the other high-end SUVs have better "soft touch" materials that make car journalist get tingly all over? Of course.This Caddy is designed to eat up huge and I mean huge amounts of American interstate miles. Four people and their luggage? Easily.
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