Smart Roadster Morphs Into New AC

LONDON — Project Kimber, the British-based consortium that plans to revive the discontinued Smart Roadster under the AC name, has released the first image of its new car that goes into production next year.


The consortium plans to produce the new two-seater in the U.K. The production location is expected to be in Wales, with up to 8,000 cars produced in the first year. It is rumored there is a prospective second production site, in Erfurt, Germany, being considered. Project Kimber confirms it is in the final stage of assembling a $130 million investment package aimed at securing the car's future.

The group is working toward a goal of getting the car sold in North America. It has also bought tooling equipment from Smart parent company DaimlerChrysler that, it says, will allow it to easily and cost-effectively place the two-seater into series production.

Project Kimber secured the rights to the Smart Roadster and its Roadster Coupe sibling last February following the failure of a more ambitious bid to purchase bankrupt MG Rover from its administrators. Instead, MG Rover eventually fell into the hands of Chinese carmakers Nanjing Automobile and SAIC (Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation).

The early sketch shows that the AC will not be an exact copy of the low-slung Smart, although there will be clear similarities within the doors, which are often one of the most expensive exterior panels to engineer.

The styling, penned by Keith Helfet whose list of credits include the Jaguar XJ220, is flagrantly retro but also includes some modern touches, such as vertically opening scissor action doors and an air duct ahead of the rear wheel arches to feed the midmounted engine.

Others involved in the project include Gordon Murray, the brains behind the seminal McLaren F1; and John Piper, who was instrumental in the JCB Dieselmax, which sped to a land speed record for diesel-powered cars at Bonneville in August with a run of 328.767 mph.

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