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It was the hour of twilight on a cool fall day toward the end of November in the year of Our Lord 2007 and Jeremy …

Wait. Sorry. I fell into a Thomas Wolfe reverie. You remember him, right? He wrote You Can't Go Home Again. George, not Jeremy, was his protagonist.

Well, whatever that great author might have believed, however much angst George suffered in the book, at least some of us can go home again, and I did. In a Smart car. A 2008 fortwo ($14,990-$21,250).

This is a very good car for Silicon Valley, the congested heart of the U.S. computer business. I grew up here, graduated from Campbell High, stayed two years at West Valley College before moving to another school in Canada. …

Okay, you're getting bored. Sorry again.

When the Smart people said they'd have their new, updated car ready for a first drive in San Jose, that was it, I had to go home. The bonus: Smart had its sales and engineering types there with answers.

Silicon Valley is not unlike Los Angeles. It is a desert, very hot in the summer, and the surrounding mountains trap smog in a big way. Little, fuel-efficient, practical, trendy, and especially stylish cars go over well here — just as they do in L.A.

At least I think they should. Smart is coming to the United States for the first time this fall, but we've had them in Canada since the 2005 model year.

That's been enough time for Smart to sell more than 10,000 of them. In fact, the old diesel fortwo was one of Mercedes-Benz Canada's very most popular models. Let's see, there's the C-Class and the fortwo and the rest of the 17 or 18 other models Mercedes sells here.

So Smart is a big deal for us Canucks. Less so in the U.S. In fact, if billionaire Roger Penske hadn't taken the risk to open Smart dealerships in the U.S., Americans would still not be able to buy one. His Penske Automotive Group, the second-largest U.S. dealer chain, is the exclusive importer here.

Ah, but Americans are in a downsizing mood these days. Gas prices are through the roof, energy security is a huge worry, the housing market has collapsed under the weight of billions in bad loans and water is scarce.

Heck, even the greenback is seriously downsizing, much to the chagrin of European luxury makers like Mercedes who sell nearly 300,000 German-built luxury cars to Americans each year. Same for BMW. The shrinking greenback is making it tough to make a profit on cars built in Europe, where the euro is soaring.

Smart, which, by the way, has cost Daimler AG more money — billions and billions in losses — than Chrysler ever did, gives Mercedes something new and small and cool to put before U.S. buyers.

Well, we can expect some Americans to look at the Smart as little more than a glorified golf cart, a car so stubby it can be parked head-first or tail-in along a curb.

Others? They are talking about the environment and wanting to do something about it. As in so many places now, California is abuzz with discussions about global warming. The state is leading the charge to get car companies to come clean and improve their fuel efficiency fleet-wide, too.

Silicon Valley, one of the best-educated parts of the U.S. — Stanford University is just up the road in Palo Alto — is a place where reports from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are read, sometimes even cover to cover. The final 2007 reports, a draft of which was recently leaked to various sympathetic news outlets, is filled with dire warnings about flood, famine, fire, drought, and disease.

So a car that barely uses any fuel at all — the gas version uses 5.9 litres/100 km in city driving and 4.8 on the highway — could turn out to be a big hit here in California and elsewhere in the U.S. Treading lightly on Mother Earth has more appeal now than ever.

The Smart USA types say 30,000 people have already slapped down a refundable $99 (U.S.) for a reservation to buy one of the microcars. We'll see how many actually pull the trigger on a purchase when the fortwo hits U.S. streets in about two months.

What's certain is that even on a Saturday afternoon parked in front of Campbell High, my old alma mater, the fortwo turns heads.

If the new thing half a dozen years ago was the gargantuan Hummer H2, the tiny two-seater Smart may be this year's drive of choice for rock stars and celebrity wannabes.

Of course, well-heeled city dwellers who love the design must also embrace the fortwo's modest performance. And then, given we now live in a nanny culture, there is the safety question: Can the fortwo hold its own in a collision with a big American SUV?

The Smart folks say this: They fashioned this new 2008 version with U.S. safety standards in mind.

But what they really want to talk about is the trendiness of it all. For instance, if you tire of the car's colour, it's easy to change in a couple of hours.

The plastic body panels can be switched by a dealer or a skillful backyard mechanic. There is a whole new world out there for Smart owners on eBay, finding fellow panel swappers.

In Canada, well, we get three versions — two coupes and a cabriolet — and all of them are powered by a 1.0-litre, three-cylinder gasoline engine located behind the seats. It develops 70 horsepower and has a top speed of 145 km/h. There's no diesel option for 2008.

For the record, the old fortwo, the diesel one, had a 40-hp motor. The performance difference is dramatic. The old fortwo would do 0-100 km/h in a leisurely 20 seconds or so, while this new one clocks in at around 13 seconds. Put away the sundial and take out a stopwatch.

The more upscale 2008 models have luxury touches like paddle shifters, sunroofs, and heated side mirrors. There's no spare tire, but there is an onboard pump and roadside assistance.

Comparables? Take Canada's best-selling car, though its size puts it more than a class above the fortwo. A base-level Honda Civic DX has exactly twice the horsepower, comes with a trunk and a back seat and is less than 20 per cent thirstier on the highway. At $17,190, the starter Civic is also in the fortwo's price range. There are other, even better, comparables.

As for safety, the Smart types are proud to haul out a test car smashed in the rear in a high-speed test. No intrusion into the passenger compartment means those inside were shaken but not maimed.

Smart also has videos of front-crash tests and a mannequin-filled Smart car rolling over and over. In every instance, the safety cage surrounding the passengers held up.

If you need test scores, well, U.S. ones are not ready yet, but the latest fortwo in Europe received four out of five stars in tests by the Euro New Car Assessment Program (NCAP). Smart engineers say crash tests show the fortwo is extraordinarily safe.

In any case, the fortwo has four airbags, antilock brakes, stability control, and a collapsing steering column.

Of course, none of that matters if the fortwo is unpleasant to drive, to live with in traffic. So for the better part of a day I whipped my little fortwo tester all around my old haunts here in San Jose.

The final stage included a 40-minute run over the Santa Cruz mountains on twisty Highway 17, a road we called "Blood Alley" as teenagers. It's a well-earned name; I had a friend who died here 30 years ago.

Look, I won't kid you with phrases like "it performed much better than I expected." Frankly, I expected modest acceleration and that's what I got.

But I had no trouble keeping up with Highway 17 traffic, though my right foot was often pegged to the floorboards.

Then there is the automated manual gearbox. It takes some getting used to. As you race away in full auto mode, the car tends to sag between shifts. Using the paddle shifters tightens things up a bit, however. Oh, and the three-cylinder engine can be noisy under full acceleration.

But I like the cabin. It's really roomy for two passengers and the colourful trim combinations and stylish instruments and controls look great.

On long drives, the soft seats grow increasingly uncomfortable. There is ample legroom, though. Luggage space? Minimal.

Sure, the fortwo is sort of an overgrown roller skate, but I do love the looks and what it represents — creative, daring new thinking about cars, especially city cars. The pricing is better than ever, too.

The starter '08 model is a couple of thousand less than last year's. Moreover, while it hasn't been confirmed yet, the '08 fortwo should qualify for the federal government's ecoAuto rebate, the maximum $2,000 amount.

So I went home again and actually found a way to save money on a Smart car.

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The Smart story

The Smart idea was first hatched by Nicolas Hayek, founder of the Swatch wristwatch line, back in 1989. His idea was to bring a newfangled small car to market.

Thus, the Smart name comes from combining the S from Swatch, the M from Mercedes and ART.

Production of the Smart fortwo began in Hambach, France, in 1998. Daimler flirted with the idea of bringing it to the United States from the start, but that idea was quickly shelved as unprofitable.

In 2004, Smart considered importing Smart's four-passenger sport-utility model, but that too was nixed. Ah, but Canadians got the fortwo in 2004 as a 2005 model.

A year later, Smart was restructured and nixed the small SUV. Indeed, Smart has never turned a profit. Parent Daimler AG has spent billions creating and maintaining Smart and hopes to make money on the brand by next year.

Today, about 800,000 have been sold in 36 countries, including Canada.