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the 76 Eldorado I picked up and built my kit car with got around 20mpg. I see no reason that a properly tuned and set up Eldorado would get bad mileage. The 500 in them was rated at some ridiculous thing like 210hp. I have no idea where they came up with a number like other than to help insurance be cheaper. A good 500 with the smog crap cleaned off and changed to fuel injection and well tuned would make an easy 450hp and get better mileage and lower emissions than stock. I think it would be possible to get 30mpg highway if you really built it up properly.
My kit car probably gets 25-30mpg but I never ran it regularly enough to know what it is really capable of. A 2000lb with me in it car with a well built rear engine 500 really isn't as fun to drive as you might think.
But really I don't see a problem with a 4000lb car with a 4 cylinder in it. The car won't be a speed demon but really look at the weight of some of the current made cars with 4 cyl engines. My Astro is 4,350 lbs factory, add in the real wood interior and all the other conversion van stuff and it is easily over 5000lbs with no passengers. It has a 165hp 4.3L engine and drives just fine. The caddys had a standard BOP bolt pattern so a motor swap to another GM is pretty simple but the FWD models you would have to mess with the oil pan shape to clear the axle tube. Also swapping to a turbo 325-4L (I think) transmission would get you a 4 speed lockup capable setup to really improve mileage, it is basically a 700-R4. That trans won't survive more than a few minutes behind the 472/500 engine though, the torque they put out is insane. There is a 40% overdrive gear set for the chain drive in the th425 trans so it can really give you some low highway rpms if you want to keep the stronger trans.
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