[Christ]

Based on my own observations, your transmission can take short stints of EOC, like 200 ft to a red light, for instance.

This might help you out a bit. If you know you're going to stop at the light anyway, you might as well shut 'er down a few feet before hand, and coast up to the light in Neutral.

Else, you could always think about weight reduction and aero modding, not that there's too many bad lines on the car to begin with. The grille is wholly unnecessarily large, though, and those side mirrors could stand to be smaller/inside the car, for starters.

Thinking about the back of the car, you might benefit from a deck-extension spoiler, like those used on NHRA cars (but not as hideous) to help reattach flow from the roofline at a virtual 12-14* angle. Easy enough to visualize, just run a string from your roof at a 12* angle, and another one at a 14* angle, and see how long your deck spoiler would have to be to reattach flow beyond the deck lid.

Smooth wheel covers, or something approximating them, as well as rear wheel skirts and a partial "sunscreen" type Kamm extension over the rear window would all be valid mods that could easily be made to look half decent and not cost that much. They'd all get you closer to 40 as well.

I think the coup de grace, so to speak, will be when you get some more experience under your belt, finally get down and greasy, and swap that tranny over to a 5 speed. That will put you "over the hill" in terms of fuel economy, for sure.

I'm estimating that when I do the 5 speed swap in Cara, I should have no problem seeing 33-35 MPG average, with my normal driving cycle (average tank speed ~40MPH) mostly due to the ability to take advantage of longer gearing, and shift at lower engine speeds, and maintain low vehicle speed in a 1:1 relationship w/ the input shaft of the transmission, rather than the variable input of the torque convertor (when under 40 MPH). There's something to be said for a direct clutch link, ya know?