Cars with a reasonably tall choice of manual transmission gearing?
 

I'm trying to think of cars that have a decent choice of gear ratios for an economic manual transmission.
So far I have this:
Geo Metro XFi
Honda Civic CX/VX/HF/HX
Honda Insight
Something RWD that a taller rear diff can be swapped into.
Have I missed any cars that have a decent choice of gear ratios and stand a change to get good fuel economy?

The Cobalt XFE I believe had taller gearing.

Doesn't get good FE, but my '91 stang has 2.73 gears, cruises like 1900rpm at 70 or something like that. It's ridiculous.

My dad's corolla cruises at 80 at 3000 RPM with a 4a-fe converted to a 4a-f (don't ask,) but both are a slushbox.

3.773 gearing iirc is 3k @ 80.

OK, I give up. What does one do with the answer to this question? :confused:

On that note, try anything with a Tremec T56 (Corvettes and LS/1 Camaros come to mind, though there are others). Stupid tall .5 6th gear. We are talking 1400rpm at 60. Even "average joe" drivers claimed 30mpg highway from them, even owing to the usual BS factors, that's pretty good.

Mostly make myself feel worse about being unemployed and only acquiring money through a side business I run to ensure I can keep going to college, or it seems that way.

The real reason is that there has to be more than just what I listed in the OP for cars that would respond well to a boat tail since a stock Honda civic cx/vx/hx/hf around here is like cake at fat camp, the insights are quite expensive, and the geo metros are usually already in the scrapyard.


I occasionally wonder about the feasibility of building a boat tail onto a RWD station wagon and install a tall rear diff and a wide ratio manual

H-Man if you wanna buy my HX I would be willing to let it go for what I have into it. But I think even then it would be out of your price range.

Unless you really need the interior space of a station-wagon, I'd consider to get a 4th-gen Camaro due to its light platform and good aerodynamics.