The New Smart #6 Has Mercedes CLA DNA All Over It.
Smart is currently launching its all-new #6 sedan in China. With a starting price of around $28,000. As I mentioned earlier, it looks a lot like something Dodge would, or even, should build. It’s a large car. Actually longer than a Honda Accord, which basically defeats the whole purpose of a Smart in the first place. But who am I to judge…
The exterior of both cars actually look quite different. From the photos above, they don’t even really seem related. Inside, however, it looks remarkably similar to the new Mercedes CLA. The basic dashboard architecture appears almost identical. There’s the floating center console, the large screens, the center air vents, and even the circular vents at each end of the dashboard. The door panels also share more than a passing resemblance. It wouldn’t take much badge swapping to convince someone they’re sitting in a Mercedes product.
Smart is jointly owned by Geely and Mercedes, and it seems a lot of Mercedes influence found its way into the new Smart #6 sedan. That’s something I also noticed recently with the new Mercedes GLB, which oddly looks a bit like the Smart #5 from certain angles. The design relationship between the two brands appears stronger than ever.
Of course, Smart has been moving upmarket and growing larger for years. Models like the #1 and #3 were certainly bigger than the original Fortwo, but they still managed to retain some of the brand’s quirky personality. They felt playful, modern, and just unconventional enough to fit the Smart image. This new sedan is different. It looks like a mainstream large sedan that could wear almost any badge.
The Smart brand is 50% owned by Geely, with the other half belonging to Mercedes. And Geely already controls a vast collection of brands, each targeting a different audience and market segment. That’s what makes the decision to use Smart for a car like this so puzzling. It feels less like a natural evolution of the brand and more like a case of finding an available badge for a new product.
Apparently, Mercedes handled the exterior design. To their credit, they resisted the temptation to install a ghastly oversized grille. The result is clean and modern, although also quite conservative. There isn’t much about the styling that immediately says “Smart.”
Again, the whole thing resembles a modern Dodge sedan. It looks like a hypothetical successor to the Dodge Dart, stretched into a midsize fastback and updated for today’s market. Ironically, it might actually make more sense as a Dodge than as a Smart. It even features a practical hatchback, similar to the new Dodge Charger, which is one of its most appealing features.
Underneath, the new Smart sedan shares its platform with other Geely products, including the Zeekr 007 and Smart’s own #5 SUV. So mechanically, it isn’t particularly unique. The first version will be offered as a plug-in hybrid, with fully electric variants expected to follow.
Like many modern Chinese-developed plug-in hybrids, it combines a small 1.5-liter gasoline engine with electric motors. Smart claims up to 177 miles of electric range under the Chinese testing cycle. Even if that translates to something closer to 140 miles under EPA testing, that’s still an impressive figure and enough for many owners to complete most of their daily driving without using any gasoline.
Viewed on its own merits, this will probably be a very good car. It appears efficient, spacious, technologically advanced, and highly competitive. It may even become one of Smart’s most successful models. But despite all that, it simply doesn’t feel like a Smart. Not even remotely. It feels like an entirely different vehicle wearing a familiar badge, and that’s a difficult disconnect to overlook.