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Yes, modern cars are much heavier than they should be. Some of that is safety (mostly reinforced passenger cabin and airbags everywhere), however more weight has gone into vehicle performance. Modern cars have much more torsional rigidity, leading to a better handling vehicle. There's also hundreds of pounds of sound deadening added (dynamat all over the passenger compartment, double layered laminated glass). And a lot of weight due to luxuries that most people think they want (electronics, comfy seats, storage, moonroof, etc).
If you want to save weight you should start with a light car (like a Subaru BRZ or Miata) then remove all sound deadening and luxuries until your at the bare metal. That should save you 300-500lbs.
The nice thing is that we live in a free society, so you're free to remove all airbags and seatbelts from your car. Depending the car, removing all airbags will save you between 100-200lbs. Removing all seatbelts would save you another 10-20lbs. If you really want all that safety gone, you could install much smaller/light brakes, plastic windows, and drill out holes in your car's structure to lighten it up at the expense of crash worthiness. The great thing is that Darwin will eventually get his man. Good luck.
See this crash test of new vs old car. Which would you rather be in? Search for this in youtube "1959 Chevrolet Bel Air vs. 2009 Chevrolet Malibu IIHS crash test"
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