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Edward Toney got it right. He was running errands in downtown Washington when he spotted the 2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser Limited Edition. It was a fetching piece of work — wet look, deep cranberry-red paint, polished chrome wheel covers with chrome door handles to match. Its body style was late 1930s, resembling either a small panel wagon or gangster rod. Toney couldn’t resist.

He walked over to the Cruiser.

“Hey, man, that’s the . . .?”

I cut him short with a nod. He stood back, casting admiring glances.

“Go, on, brother,” Toney said. “It’s all about looking cool.”

I nodded again. We chatted. He left. I remained parked, waiting for my spouse and lost in my thoughts.

Surely, the front-wheel-drive Cruiser is no racer. It is a slant-nosed, bug-eyed, big-mouth hatchback weighing 3,187 pounds. It pulls its load with an ordinary engine — a 150-horsepower, 2.4-liter in-line four-cylinder job, mated in this case to an optional four-speed automatic transmission.

The Cruiser moves competently on urban streets and highways, and it has one of the best suspension systems available on any small vehicle. That’s especially true of the rear portion, which employs coil springs and a twist beam augmented by trailing arms and a Watts linkage. That means the vehicle’s rear does a marvelous job of following its front end around curves.

But nobody could mistake the Cruiser for a Corvette, which is okay.

The Cruiser is more poetic. It’s a zoot suit on a Saturday night, a footloose dance on your favorite floor, a bit of heaven from the Devil in a Blue Dress without the hell.

It is an excellent compromise between sense and sensuality. As such, the Cruiser offers potential salvation to automotive Calvinists, strict utilitarians who seem to have forgotten that God also wants us to have fun.

The Cruiser’s 65-35 split rear seat is easily removable, creating 76 cubic feet of cargo space. If more space is needed, the front passenger seat can be folded down flat.

There’s also an adjustable cargo-area shelf that can be used as a picnic table beneath the shade of the opened hatch. Other storage areas abound, beneath the front seats, in door panels and interior rear panels. It’s a pack rat’s dream.

The Cruiser bridges so many lifestyles and fantasies — everything from shopping-mall suburbia to mental Bonnie-and-Clyde reruns — it’s no wonder that DaimlerChrysler AG stuck the “PT” tag on the vehicle’s moniker. The initials stand for “Personal Transportation,” with the emphasis on “personal.” The thing defies categorization. It is whatever you want it to be.

Even the government is befuddled on this score. Because the Cruiser’s decent fuel economy (25 miles per gallon on the highway) helps improve the average fuel economy ratings of DaimlerChrysler’s sport-utility and pickup fleets, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrati on allows the company to classify the Cruiser as a “truck.”

But no one who saw the Cruiser on the street called it a truck. Many people called it a “little wagon.” Others called it a “micro-van.” Others called it a car. But Toney was the one who came closest to the truth.

“It’s not about what it is,” he said. “It’s about what it’s about, and that’s looking cool, you know, being seen being cool. Nothing else matters.”

Nuts & Bolts

2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser Limited Edition Complaints: Lord, I know it’s sinful to ask for more horsepower in an era of higher-than-usual gasoline prices, but I’m an American. And like most Americans, I want more zoom in my broom. So see what you can do to get DaimlerChrysler to add 50 more horses or so.

Praise: One of the most imaginative, well-crafted, emotionally designed, fairly priced vehicles to hit the world auto market in decades. People are lining up to buy the thing. Here’s hoping that m ost DaimlerChrysler dealers don’t follow some of their errant peers in charging premiums as high as $3,000 over sticker.

Head-turning quotient: Poltergeist power! It had heads spinning everywhere.

More hardware details: That 2.4-liter, double-overhead-cam, 16-valve in-line four-cylinder engine develops 150 horsepower at 5,600 rpm and 162 pound-feet of torque at 4,000 rpm. Standard transmission is a five-speed manual. Standard brakes are power front discs (vented) and rear drums. Optional brakes are power four-wheel discs (vented front and solid rear) with anti-lock backup.

Capacities: Seats five. Holds 15 gallons of gasoline (premium unleaded — at least 90-octane — is required).

Price: Dealer’s invoice price on the base Cruiser is $14,330. Suggested retail price on the base model is $15,450, which rises to $16,000 with the $550 transportation charge . The tested Limited Edition costs $4,000 more, including the standard transportation charge, for a total of $20,000. These prices do not include local taxes and fees.

Purse-strings note: The Cruiser is one of a kind. Beware of excessive dealer markups.