Hamburg - Celebrating its tenth anniversary this month, the Smart is finally becoming a rising star in the Daimler company after a bumpy ride and many experts predicting the early demise of the microcar.

When its inventor, the Swiss watchmaker Nicolas G. Hayek, muted the idea of building a city car with space for two adults and a shopping bag it was seen by many as something of a joke.

But with Mercedes-Benz joining the project as co-partner in the Micro Compact Car company, the idea became reality in 1998. However, Hayek soon become disillusioned by the big luxury car maker's approach to the project and eventually sold all his shares to Daimler.

"The Swatch mobile was supposed to be an eco-friendly, cheap small car with hybrid drive, but they turned it into a laughable small version of a Mercedes," Hayek remarked later in an interview.

Hayek criticised the high price of the car aimed at the lower price segment. The first Smart generation never reached the expected sales levels on European markets and became a serious headache for Daimler which had hit a rough patch after the troubled merger with Chrysler.

Production of the Smart roadster and four-seater forfour were stopped and plans to build a mini Smart SUV scuttled. In the year 2005, Daimler slashed 600 jobs at the Smart headquarters based in the French town of Hambach as part of a 1.1 billion euro cost-cutting programme. According to some reports Daimler had by then sunk around 8 billion euros into the Smart project.

But with the introduction of the second generation Smart fortwo in 2007, sales have steadily been rising. Fitted with all the comforts of a bigger sedan such as Electronic Stability Programme (ESP), ABS brakes, four airbags and a safety cell, it was a big improvement on the first Smart.

The Smart fortwo also came just at the right time on the U. S. market this year when customers were turning away from fuel-guzzlers in droves. So far some 11,400 Smarts have been delivered to the United States and customers wait an average of a year after placing their order.

With the sales spurt in the US, Daimler this year alone expects to sell about 130,000 Smarts worldwide compared to a total of 900,000 deliveries over the past ten years in 37 countries.

On its tenth birthday the Smart finally appears to fulfill the destiny marked out by its inventor Hayek. Daimler has just announced that from October 2008 all the petrol-engined 45 kW/61 hp and 52 kW/71 hp Smart fortwos would be fitted standard with micro hybrid drive (mhd) and fuel-saving start-stop system.

Fuel consumption has been reduced from 4.7 litres per 100 kilometres to around 4.3 litres per 100 kilometres. Carbon dioxide emissions have been reduced from an average of 112 grams to approximately 103 grams per kilometre.

The diesel version has a fuel consumption of only 3.3 litres per 100 kilometres with a carbon dioxide emission figure of only
88 g/km.

After running a test with 100 electric-powered Smarts in London, the car maker also announced the mass production of Smart electric-drive for 2010.

Starting in early 2009, the Smart will also be available for the first time in China. Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche says the Smart is virtually custom-tailored to meet the growing demand for small cars in China.

Summing up the late success of the Smart, Zetsche remarked: "Had we not invented it 10 years ago, we would have to do so now." (dpa)