Published: Nov 28, 2012

Jeremy Scott Puts the Art Car in the Smart Car

Fashion designer makes his mark on Daimler's electric city car.

Results can vary when a fashion designer and an automaker get together. The Nissan Micra designed by Elle magazine, for example, was not exactly our cup of tea. The Fiat 500 by Gucci was better, but the Chrysler 300 by John Varvatos is pretty damn cool, in our opinion at least. The latest collaboration teams Jeremy Scott with Smart for a special ForTwo Electric Drive being unveiled at the Los Angeles Auto Show. We're not sure we like the results, but one thing's for sure: it's damn near useless.

Jeremy Scott Puts the Art Car in the Smart Car

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The most obvious flourish Scott has added to the electric city car is a pair of wings - white on one side, red on the other - that extend rearward with integrated brake lights like fins on an old Caddy, only higher up to block more visibility. The rest of the body has been done up in white with chrome trim, making it look like a Persian pop starlet's daydream. The result of an eight-month design process (if you can believe it) between Scott and the Smart design division at Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design Studios in Carlsbad, California, the Smart ForJeremy also features wider rear wheels housed in enlarged fenders, with restyled headlights up front.

The interior is decked out in diamond-quilted white Nappa leather with a minimalistic instrument panel in and a pistol-grip steering wheel. "Cooperations with fashion designers are normally limited to selecting interior materials and interior and exterior colour schemes," said Daimler design chief Gorden Wagener. "With Jeremy Scott, however, we wanted to go one step further and integrated the typical wings as a central design element in the vehicle body. This was quite a challenge, because it was not just a case of creating a showcar, but rather of creating a near-series study with the potential for licensing it for road use in the future."