Smart car to start serial production in July
ZURICH, Dec 29: The Smart car, a highly touted two-seat mini vehicle delayed by technical problems, will start serial production in early July after its problems are sorted out, a partner in the project was quoted as saying.The car, made by the Micro Compact Car venture, flipped during tests in extreme conditions, prompting Daimler-Benz AG and Swiss watchmaker Ste Suisse Microelectronique et D'Horlogerie SA (SMH) to delay its launch. Asked when he would drive the first serially produced Smart car, SMH chairman Nicolas Hayek told the SonntagsBlick newspaper: "In early July. This was guaranteed to me." Hayek, whose SMH makes Swatch watches, said the car would look even better in its new, improved form. "The tyres will be a bit wider, the rear axle as well, and the weight ratio will be adjusted somewhat. It looks sportier. I have seen it," Hayek said. The newspaper said the Smart car had other technical problems. It reported doors did not fit the body well so that it leaked in wet conditions, that
the heating did not work properly and the glove box did not close correctly. Hayek played down the paper's suggestion that the car had been rushed to market too soon. "We do not have a delay because of bad planning. At the moment there are simply a few parts that are not 100 per cent," he said. "I had always said that we would start deliveries in April rather than March as a result of various small improvements to a few components. And now that it flipped -- under extreme conditions, mind you -- the start of sales has been delayed by six months."He said he was still convinced the car would be a success. Germany's Daimler-Benz, already embarrassed by the flop of its new Mercedes A-Class car, said this month it would delay launching the Smart car until October 1998 to fix safety problems. The crisis over the Smart car led to the removal of Johann Tomforde as head of the Smart car's research and development team and his assignment to other duties at MCC. The Smart car's stability had been checked
after the A-Classtipped over in October in the now-famous "elk test", named by Scandinavian drivers for the sudden braking turns at high speed needed to avoid ramming into wild elk.The car failed the test at its factory in Hambach, only days after German chancellor Helmut Kohl and french president Jacques Chirac visited the French plant and praised it as a model of co-operation. Other Smart cars flipped during tests in Spain and America. Mercedes had started delivering the A-Class to customers in October, but stopped until February 1998 to add new safety features. The revamped A-Class passed the "elk test" but thousands of customers have cancelled orders or opted for other cars. Daimler has said the delay would hurt 1997 operating profit by 100 million marks ($56.4 million) and 1998 levels by 200 million marks.The MCC venture, in which Daimler holds an 81-per cent stake and SMH a 19-per cent stake, hopes to sell 200,000 of the new mini cars a year.
Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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