Smart Roadster

The Roadster is a two-door, two-seat sports car that Smart GmbH introduced in 2002, together with its variant the Roadster Coupe. About 43,091 were built before it was discontinued in November 2005, and the last one stands in the Mercedes-Benz Museum. Its design began in autumn 1998 under Jens Manske, who saw that the powertrain of the City-Coupe suited a small sports car with a compact turbo engine driving the rear wheels through a six-speed automated manual gearbox. Michael Mauer took over the design in May 1999, and the concept was shown at the 1999 Frankfurt show. It was built entirely at the Hambach factory in Moselle, France. Smart was then part of DaimlerChrysler.