PLEASANT PRAIRIE — What’s cute and cuddly, black and silver, 95 percent blue-bag recyclable, fits in a handbag, tote sack or manbag — and gets 33 miles per gallon in the city and 41 to 50 mpg on the highway?

That would be Tricia Metalas Dibble’s 2008 smart fortwo passion cabriolet, which stands 5-feet 7-inches tall, weighs 2,316 pounds empty and barely measures 106 inches bumper to bumper. With a wheelbase just over 73 inches, it needs only 28 feet of space to turn 360-degrees.

Dibble first spotted smart cars up close in 2000 while on a European vacation with husband Bruce. “Then, in 2002, on our dream trip we traveled all over Greece tracing my ancestry, and they were all over the place. I fell in love with them,” she said.

With an 18-month waiting list for delivery, Dibble ordered hers in January 2008, expecting to pick it up at the dealership this past June. But six months after ordering, the dealer called saying he had one for her that another customer ordered but refused to accept. It didn’t have the bright yellow plastic body, door, trunk and hood panels or the black-painted metal safety cell.

“It would have looked like a bumblebee,” said Dibble, who nevertheless loved her silver and black smart right from the start.

If she ever wants to change colors, painting it won’t be an issue. Replacing all the plastic panels costs an estimated $1,200, according to Dibble, who does pine a bit for the optional seat warmers included in her original order. But she doesn’t waste any passion on what the car doesn’t have, choosing instead to accentuate how much fun it is to drive, how economical it is on fuel, although not a hybrid, and its relatively inexpensive price.

Said her husband: “When we got this car (in June 2008) gas was at $4 a gallon. So, we weren’t complaining.”

As for leg room, Bruce, a semi driver for Ken-Crete, finds the interior more than spacious enough for the two of them traveling together. After driving a truck all day, “when I get in this, it’s like a Cadillac,” he said, grinning about its very un-Cadillac ease at parking in tight spots. After all, two smart cars, end to end, fit a standard parking space.

The cute-cuddly description is admittedly subjective but hard to debate when the exceedingly good-natured, irrepressible Tricia affectionately pointed out the surprisingly many bells and whistles in and on her rollerskate-sized convertible.

The bag-fitting schtick? OK, that’s exaggerated. But it’s a point Tricia, a maintenance engineer for an Illinois-based insurance company, made in describing her pee-wee puddle jumper’s anti-theft devices.

The first is a conventional alarm to scare off potential car thieves. The second employs an interior motion-sensor to detect, say, an uninvited arm probing around inside when the top is down while Tricia and Bruce shop or get a bite to eat. “But I don’t know why you need an alarm because you can put it (her smart car) in your purse, and take it in the restaurant with you,” Tricia said with a laugh.

About that highway gas mileage: Bruce accounted for the 50 mpg. Tricia — who doesn’t argue when Bruce alleges who is heavier on the pedal — gets closer to the 41 mpg rating on www.fueleconomy.gov for the three-cylinder, 999-cc, gas-fueled Mercedes-Benz product.

Either way, the Pleasant Prairie couple regularly logs 450 miles — including the 320-mile round trip — on a single eight-gallon tank of gas when visiting daughter Amy in Stevens Point. That’s with Tricia, Bruce and shih tzus Daisy, Sophia and Zoey aboard. The dogs ride behind the seats on the carpeted deck atop the rear-mounted engine compartment.

The speedometer maxes out at 100 mph, although Tricia apparently hasn’t yet tested her smart fortwo’s ultimate speed. She cringes distastefully hearing how some speed freaks convert the pint-sized passenger cars with 68-horsepower motors into musclebound mites packing Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle power plants bored out and beefed up to 300 horsepower.

As it happens, Tricia gave up riding motorcycles after being severely injured several years ago in a car wreck. She was in an auto at the time. Spinal rods permanently implanted in her neck now impair her ability to turn her head from side to side. Her smart fortwo is her “motorcycle,” she said. Driving top down, she gets to feel the wind in her face, sporting along enclosed by an active/passive safety system incorporating a steel “tridion safety cell” that encases the passenger compartment.

“The reason I have scarves is so my hair doesn’t blow,” Tricia said, tying a Stars-and-Stripes bandana on her head, turning on the premium stereo, six-CD changer before leaving her driveway. “You want a convertible all your life. Then, you have the hair thing.”