Sounds about like the shape my corolla was in. It was listed for $600, and it costed me $650 to jump in front of the line (after I drove ~1.5 hours to look at a trashed camry which was in the area). The car needed ~$500 in parts including struts all around (need to do fronts STILL), alignment WAY off (steering was about 1/2 turn off), good tread, but dry rotted tires, 219k miles on the car (didn't bother me really), oh and the driver's seat belt didn't work, had to break it and tie it on to "wear" it (first thing I fixed when I got home).
After some cheap struts from ebay, cheap discount tires, alignment, and driving ~8 months, the fuel savings paid for the orig $650 investment (see my fuel log, my Camry got 27mpg, corolla epa is 26 combined).
That HF sounds like the perfect (if you can get it CHEAP) car to areo mod... poor shape cars tend to do that, nice cars make it harder to do since it has a value yet.
Anyway, good luck finding another car! Would love to see another areo build thread of yours and get something in the 60s for mpg
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