[Wonderboy]

The tercel is a great suggestion. 7th Gen corollas are 2300lbs. I had a 93 that still sits in my EM garage if you want to see some baseline MPG numbers. It was just a stock 5 speed sedan, and I eventually took the mudflaps off. Not too much else in physical mods. I've been hunting down light-bodied cheap cars for an EV conversion (definitely in the sub $1000 range) and in the process I bought a metro XFi to fix up as my regular gas car. If you don't want to go with a metro, and don't want to deal with $1000+ pre-riced CRXs (CL is chock full of them), then you may want to look in to the civic hatchbacks of the same era. In terms of finding parts though, Honda parts (especially CRX) are sometimes prices as though they are made of gold. If you can find a good working honda and nab a cheap parts car to go with it, I think that would be the best way to go. In terms of being able to find parts ANYWHERE, get a metro/swift or a corolla/prizm. Junkyards around here are littered with them. Other neat little cars that could be nice are a little harder to find like older VW rabbit/cabriolets, mazda 323s, colt/summit/mirage (a few of these with the 4G15 engine had mitsubishi's version of lean-burn). I'd like to see someone take a super reliable and reasonably safe and light body like the tercel or 7th gen corolla and drop a smaller engine like a 4G15 or a swift engine/drivetrain in to make it a little less hungry. Now I'm rabling away from topic... Good luck!

Oh yeah, I payed $1300 for my 93 Corolla. The only work it needed while I had it was the master cylinder - the clutch would stick to the floor and I had to pull it back out with my foot to disengage it each time. This became pretty dangerous.