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Warning: Heavy brainstorms ahead.
I always thought it seemed like a good idea to have a FWD gas car with an electric motor driving the rear wheels and doing some regenerative braking. It's probably beyond the scope of what you want to do with this car, but I would like to, someday, find a Legacy rolling chassis, put a native FWD (transverse-mounted) drivetrain under the hood, and do exactly what you're talking about with the rear wheels. That would do away with the additional drivetrain losses of RWD over FWD (from changing the plane of rotation), retain AWD functionality, and gain the advantage of a light hybrid system. I would only do a small cell due to weight concerns, just to help out under load, recover some lost braking energy, and maybe get it up to idle in 3rd gear from a stop before kicking the engine in. If you're clever, you can probably fit the whole setup under the rear floorboard and above your eventual ideal bellypan, so you don't sacrifice aerodynamics or cargo capacity.
I'm not sure what motor to use, or even where to start looking, as I've never done an extreme drivetrain surgery like that, but you might have more room to play with if you turn the differential around and mount the motor behind it. You might have to sacrifice the spare tire area, but you could avoid having anything enter the actual cabin. Thanks to the brilliant symmetry of that drivetrain, the diff reversal shouldn't even require any body modifications. Just remove it, turn it around, and reinstall it. Might help, might not. At least you have that option to play around with.
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