WATSONTOWN -- Rick and Tracy Buck were Smart when they recently purchased two new cars.

They bought two Smart Fortwo cars, the popular European car built by Daimler-Benz, at the only dealership in Pennsylvania selling them -- Mercedes-Benz of Devon, 214 W. Lancaster Ave., Devon.

"I'm constantly driving from here to Mifflinburg and Lewisburg," said Buck. "I was looking for energy efficiency."

He seems to have found it in his yellow Smart, which gets 37 miles per gallon.

"Tracy gets 40 miles per gallon in hers, but she does the speed limit," he chuckled, adding, "I try to."

The Smart Fortwo has been all the rage in Europe since they were introduced in 1998. People seem to love their quirky appearance, not to mention the great gas mileage. Over 900,000 have been produced in factories in Germany and France, and they were formally introduced in the U.S. in January 2008.

The car is so small that drivers can squeeze them into parking spaces between other cars. The Bucks often pull both of theirs into a single parking stall on Brimmer Avenue.

The Smart Fortwo, as its name implies, is a two-seater, but it has plenty of leg room and storage space inside.

"It doesn't feel at all like a small car from the inside," said Buck. "It has air bags all around."

The passenger compartment is surrounded by a framework of steel that protects those inside, and the car has front and side-curtain airbags.

Buck and his wife recently drove one of their Smarts to West Virginia, travelling on Interstate highways for part of the distance.

"I was completely comfortable," he said. "I wasn't getting blown off the road by trucks or anything like that."

While on the trip, they encountered heavy rain.

"I was a little scared at first," he recounted, "but it was fine. The car handled well in the rain."

In spite of its tiny size, the Smart has plenty of luggage space. Two suitcases and a guitar fit easily inside behind the seats, Buck said. The luggage space is accessible from a rear hatch, too.