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aspera,
I worked on a side-by-side that could get either an air-cooled Honda (at the time) or a liquid-cooled N/A diesel.
As far as weight reduction vs. aero (assuming you mean road cars) it depends largely on your driving cycle. Personally I almost never drive stoplight-to-stoplight and spend large portions of my drive on fairly level controlled access highways. A vehicle's FE on such a cycle is dominated by aerodynamic effects. Any drive cycle where speeds are low (below 35mph) and/or stops and hills are frequent would have its FE dominated by weight/acceleration effects. I'm more of a performance junkie than an all-out eco seeker so I tend to think that all weight is bad, but honestly to do more P&G at highway speeds more mass becomes necessary with a larger CdA or the P&G is less effective.
Just in case you were asking about off-road side by sides or ATVs, unless you're an all-out racer seeking to hold top speed aero doesn't come into play much. That said, you would be surprised how much drag a canvas and plastic canopy illustrates at just under 30mph.
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