#smart

I’ve been accused of Automotive Hipsterism for bragging about my bare bones Ford truck instead of aspiring to expensive vehicles. It used to be different, back when top-drawer dashboards were more Malevich and less Pollock in design. Because good design embraces Less is More, while poor design over thinks the solution.

In the automotive world “Smart” is little more than a punchline, a symbol of bad packaging and failed branding. The current lineup of cars has dragged on for far too long, languishing without any upgrades and watching its market share recede as newer, more exciting entrants come in to play. But the next generation might be a chance for the brand to do a complete 180.

Car-sharing service Car2Go, whose ubiquitous blue-and-white Smart Fourtwos can be seen parked on the streets of many a major city, will leave the United Kingdom market today.

The still you see above is from the latest promotional video regarding the new Smart ForTwo and ForFour. We will certainly see the ForTwo in the United States. The ForFour is less likely, but I am holding out hope – I really like its sister car, the Renault Twingo, and I would love one with the swirly camo wrap seen above.

Photo courtesy of NBC Bay Area.com

San Francisco’s NBC affiliate is reporting on a new wave of vandalism sweeping the City by the Bay, car tipping. At least four Smart cars were flipped over Sunday night, by what one hooded-sweatshirt wearing witness described as a group of six to eight people wearing hooded sweatshirts. The case has drawn national attention, sparking the creation of a Facebook parody site, comments by the website totalfratmove.com, who called the car tippers “heroes,” and at least one cheekily written article on the website regarded by many as the seedy underbelly of the car blogging world, The Truth About Cars.

Just when it looked like Citroen had a lock on weird, funky French cars, rival Renault has come out swinging with their new Twingo A-Segment car.

The Smart ForJeremy concept, a collaboration between Smart and haute couture designer Jeremy Scott, is going into production and is set to go on sale in Q4 of this year.

In 50 years we’ve gone from this…

At the 2013 Shanghai Auto Show, Daimler used the occasion for their smart brand to introduce what they say will be “an extremely limited special edition” street legal production version of the smart fortwo by fashion designer Jeremy Scott known as the smart forjeremy, first shown as a concept at the Los Angeles show late last year. Also at this year’s Shanghai show, Buick introduced their latest Riviera concept, a product of GM’s Chinese design studio. 2013 is the 50th anniversary of the first Riviera, introduced on October 4, 1962 as a 1963 model.

One of the more interesting bits of news this week comes from France; the next-generation Smart Forfour (big brother of the worst car on sale today, as voted by the readership) will share a common architecture with the adorable Renault Twingo.

Ladies and Gentleman, TTAC is glad to announce the winners of the Ten Worst Automobiles Today, as voted by you, the reader. The Smart Fortwo took the top spot – but what about the others?

Smart asked fashion designer Jeremy Scott to come up with a special version of the smart fortwo electric car. Much to the horror of Daimler engineers who were used to fashion designers submitting patches of interior materials and color schemes, Jeremy Scott did put his trademark on the car: Wings, sprouting on both sides, and likely wreaking havoc with the CW coefficient.

My two weeks in Europe has drawn to a close, and I’m back at my familiar desk, in front of my familiar computer, catching up on all the automotive happenings I missed, contemplating my transition out of TTAC’s day-to-day leadership, and reflecting on all I saw over my whirlwind two weeks. And though you haven’t heard from me much in the last two weeks, rest assured that I have not forgotten TTAC, nor have I missed any opportunities to accumulate impressions from the automotive landscape of modern Europe.