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Focus : Living & Working Green - Real Estate & Construction

Environmentally conscious consumers in Fairfield County and the Hudson Valley have a multitude of options for hybrid and energy-efficient cars.

In Fairfield, construction is under way on one of the first Smart Car dealerships as part of the cars introduction into the U.S. market in 2008. The dealership is expected to be completed by the beginning of the year.

The Smart Fortwo is manufactured by the Mercedes Car Group and is a member of the DaimlerChrysler family. It is being exclusively distributed in the United States by Penske Automotive Group Inc.

Smart is actually an acronym that stands for Swatch-Mercedes-Art. The Swiss watchmaker partnered with Mercedes to design the car.

The car will get around 40 miles to the gallon, its top speed will be 90 mph and it will have a 71-horsepower rear engine, said Randall Seymore, area vice president for Penske Automotive Group Inc.

The cars will start at $11,500 and can be reserved for a downpayment of $99.

The Fairfield Smart Center, which will be one of the first to open in the country, will consist of two floors with a total 3,050 square feet. The first floor will feature a sales showroom and the second floor will house a salesroom and Smart Car display.

Seymore said there have been 35,000 reservations in the United States so far, which exceeds the 25,000 cars that have been produced for the 2008 U.S. debut. In Fairfield County, around 300 reservations have been made.

Seymore believes as more and more Americans become environmentally aware, hybrid and fuel-efficient cars will continue to sell.

“I think you’re starting to see it already,” he said. “These kinds of cars are becoming more and more popular.”

The Smart Fortwo is sold in 36 countries and about 770,000 cars have been sold, according to the company.

American automakers are also increasingly seeing the viability of producing hybrid vehicles.

In the first nine months of 2007, hybrid sales rose 38 percent while the general auto market fell by 3 percent, according to information provided by www.hybridcars.com, an online Web journal and market research organization.

However, September marked the second consecutive month that U.S. hybrid sales were below 2 percent of overall vehicle sales.

According to the Web site, New York was fourth among states with the highest hybrid sales, behind California, Florida and Texas.

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