We analyze the question of which motivic homotopy types admit smooth schemes as representatives. We show that given a pointed smooth affine scheme X and an embedding into affine space, the affine deformation space of the embedding gives a model for the P1 suspension of X; we also analyze a host of variations on this observation. Our approach yields many examples of A(1) -(n - 1)-connected smooth affine 2n-folds and strictly quasi-affine A(1)-contractible smooth schemes.