The adorable little Smart Fortwo has finally landed on American shores. Smart USA officially set up show by opening their first dealership and corporate headquarters yesterday in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills. Another 67 dealerships are scheduled to open across 31 states within a period of one month to sell the Smart Fortwo city car. If you have been to Europe you wouldn’t have missed the Smart Fortwo’s running along the narrow European city streets and would have wished you could have one of your own to deal with menacing city traffic and parking problems. Well now’s your chance, log on to www.smartusa.com and book yours for only $99 (30,000 people from across 50 US states have already done so!). The site also enables you to customize your Smart Fortwo in a variety of cool ways. The Fortwo’s are being made in France and are being shipped to ports in Maryland, Florida and California. The first car’s already been delivered to a New York buyer on 13 February’ 08.

What does it cost get ‘Smart’ on the road? The base price for the two seat mini car is more than $12000 inclusive of destination charges. For the fully loaded Smart Fortwo Passion convertible you’d have to shell out around $17,000. That’s not small change for such a small car with only two seats and no boot, however customers are likely to appreciate the car’s practicality, fuel economy and fun appeal. The Fortwo weighs only 816 kilogram and gives a mileage of 14 kilometres to the litre in city conditions and 17.5 kilometres per litre on the highway.

The Smart though small is claimed to be safe for city driving and has a steel safety cage and four air bags, including two in front and two on the sides to protect the head and abdomen area. It also comes with electronic stability control as standard. Smart tested the Fortwo in January 2008 when it took the mini car over an unusual long distance from Los Angeles via Chicago to the Detroit Auto Show 2008.

Smart is betting big on it’s USA entry as Smart has never been profitable in Europe and sales have been continually under pressure.