The brand new smart fortwo going to come out next year, most likely at the Paris Motor Show where its Renault brothers will also be revealed. So, why is Daimler waiting? What could they have left to do on the car?
Well, for starters, the safety aspect needs to be spot-on perfect. smart has always prided itself with that Tridion Safety Cell, a stiff structure designed to protect occupants in a crash. For the new smart, they aren't just testing for car-to-car crashes.
This spy footage shows how engineers are testing one prototype to absolute destruction. One of the test they did see the smart dropping off a wedge ramp to see how the ESP behaves at speed when the car is on two wheels. They do this repeatedly and the car copes well.
But the real acid test is to come. The little smart is subjected to multiple crashes with a large and heavy sack placed off the ground. This is actually a simulated wild boar crash test. ADAC does it, for example, but we've never seen it done multiple times to a single car.
After that, the smart fortwo is driven into a small step, which probably simulates a really bad speed bump or gigantic pothole. As you can see, this isn't just another small, cheap car. It's very resiliant.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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