FORFOUR HEIR TO JOIN EXPANDING SMART LINE-UP

European CEO confirms plans for four-seater, badged #4, to join overhauled city car range

- WILL RIMELL

Smart is readying a successor to the Forfour four years after the model went out of production as part of a major model shakeup.

The new four-seat city car will cap a huge overhaul of the Mercedes- and Geely-owned brand's lineup, which will include the launch of the recently announced #2 city car next year, along with major updates to the #1 crossover and #3 coupé-crossover. They will join the #5 SUV flagship, deliveries of which are set to begin in the coming months. Revealed to be in the works by Smart's European CEO Dirk Adelmann at the Munich motor show, the new Forfour, which will take the #4 name, will be designed and engineered for Europe and twinned with the incoming #2, itself a successor to the popular Fortwo.

Given the early stages of the development, a design for the #4 has yet to be penned, but Adelmann said it will need to echo that of the previous car while incorporating modern Smart design cues. “It needs to look like a successor,” he added.

This is the same brief as for the recently announced #2, the design for which was confirmed by Adelmann to have been signed off a few months ago by Smart chief designer Kai Sieber.