It's a car that gets up to 50 miles a gallon, pollutes very little and can slip into just about any parking place.

But buying the European 'Smart Car' and actually driving it in the United States can be very difficult.

Just ask John Robinson, a University of Maryland professor, who first got interested in the tiny, two-seater when he saw it in Paris in 1999.

He spent years cutting through red tape, making thousands of phone calls, before finally getting his car this spring. He says the obstacles never seemed to end.

"Every time you turned around, there was one or another," he says. "If it's not from the federal officials in one country or another country, it's also the situations you might run (into) with state and local officials also."

Eventually, Robinson found a California company called ZAP or Zero Air Pollution that helped get the car shipped to the U.S. and retrofitted to meet federal regulations, even though it actually pollutes less than conventional vehicles. The car was sent to a dealership in New Hampshire and he drove it back to Maryland earlier this month.

"It is really a lot of fun to drive," says Robinson. "The only difference in terms of driving the car, I think, from an ordinary car is that if you look behind you there's just nothing there."

But that makes the car very easy to park. Sometimes Robinson can drive straight into a spot, so he doesn't have to do much parallel parking.

The cost to fill up the gas tank isn't much -- about $15, since it holds just five gallons.

The car costs $30,000, and in Robinson's case cost even more, since his is a convertible.

That doesn't matter to Robinson. He likes his so much, he has another one in California -- and he's trying to get a third.