Former Saturn General Manager Jill Lajdziak has replaced Dave Schembri as President of smart.

Faced with a massive slump in sales, the Penske Automotive Group has shaken up the management team at its smart USA operation.  Jill Lajdziak, the long-time head of General Motors’ Saturn brand has been name the new president of smart, which serves as U.S. distributor for the pint-sized fortwo, built in France.

Lajdziak replaces Dave Schembri, the automotive veteran who helped develop the smart franchise for the Penske Group and then brought it to market in early 2008.  A corporate release said Schembri, a Detroit native, will “transition into Penske Automotive Group’s retail operations.”

"smart" Move!

While the release contained strong praise for Schembri, there’s little doubt that the demanding Roger Penske has been frustrated by smart’s performance.  In the first months after the brand went on sale, in mid-January 2008, it scored a solid success, but that reflected fortuitous timing, as much as anything else, the launch coinciding with the record run-up in U.S. fuel costs.  Once pump prices peaked, in July 2008, sales tumbled sharply.

Dave Schembri leaves smart USA for new but unspecified duties at the Penske Automotive Group.

Even though it was available for less than a full 12 months, smart USA sold 24,622 copies of the fortwo, during that first year.  For the first 11 months of 2009, sales plunged to just 13,731, a 38% decline.  A company source said smart USA will show a modest improvement when December numbers are released tomorrow, but the brand will still have suffered one of the biggest downturns of any brand sold in the U.S. in 2009.

Whether anyone could have turned things around in the weak economy is uncertain.  Indeed, smart, a division of Daimler AG, has been struggling since its initial European launch.  The German maker has invested billions of dollars in a series of turnaround efforts, one undertaken just before the American launch of the fortwo.  At the time, Daimler eliminated all of smart’s other models, including a roadster and a four-seater.  It also scrubbed plans to build a compact crossover for the U.S. market.

Daimler – at the time operating as DaimlerChrysler AG – tried repeatedly to come up with a business plan that would justify entering the U.S. market.  Schembri actually worked on such a plan when he worked for Daimler’s luxury arm, Mercedes-Benz.  Eventually, the German maker turned to Roger Penske, the former racer and automotive entrepreneur, asking him to set up an independent distributorship to handle smart.  Penske, in turn, brought Schembri on board to design a smart strategy.

He had previously worked for a number of different auto manufacturers, most recently Mitsubishi, and before that Mercedes-Benz.

Lajdziak was a General Motors lifer who oversaw the ultimately unsuccessful effort to revive the brand prior to GM’s financial collapse, last year.  Lajdziak then led the search for a buyer for Saturn.  Penske had hoped to acquire the once-maverick division, but the deal fell through when the Euro-Pacific Renault-Nissan alliance decided not to provide an independent Saturn with Korean built product to replace GM’s offerings.

Lajdziak joined Penske last month, initially as its marketing manager.

There has been talk about adding a four-seat crossover to the smart line-up, but, so far, sources say that no firm plans have come together.