Greetings from Minnesota!
 

I'll try keeping this short. I've been randomly checking this site out for a couple years now, but just finally became a member. During the school year I commute 120 miles a day between home-work-school. Currently driving a clapped out 03 Ion 5spd with a frozen odometer. I'm managing roughly 33+ and I know there is massive room for improvement with my driving style.

I'm about to ditch the Ion soon for a Cobalt 5spd (reasoning is that I refuse to put the 8 month old daughter in the Saturn). I have plans to build an economy classic car in the future. In my trolling I haven't noticed many classics modded to economy, maybe I'm not looking hard enough, meaning diesel swaps, or newer engine swaps such as ecotecs, gearing etc.
Not sure yet what I'm going to get. I'm thinking along the lines of a Pinto, Chevette, Pacer, Camaro or might even crazy like a 66 volvo wagon. I really haven't decided yet. I'm too cheap to buy new, and I prefer to be different.
Anyone have a dream classic that they'd build for economy? Would love to hear your ideas.

Greetings from Tennessee!

I'm originally from Minnesota. And if there were some way I could get up there in time for the Fair, I would absolutely be there. The $1-all-you-can-drink milk bar is beyond compare.

Back in the day a magazine took it upon itself to mod a Pinto for economy and for some reason their efforts only yielded mileage in the upper teens. That never made sense to me.

I'd like to take a brief moment aside to point out that if you're not willing to put your wee bairn in the back of the Saturn, you probably won't let her within 50 feet of a Pinto. Seriously, a Saturn is a pretty good choice in my opinion - unless it's the wonky 3rd door that's giving you fits and not a crash rating.

The Chevette is capable of amazing numbers. Its acceleration is already amazing, in that it has any at all. Nonturbo smog-strangled diesel = molasses in January. Minnesota January, at that. But dropping a newer diesel into a 'Vette could be hella fun.

That front engine/rear drive layout makes it a lot easier to do, too - less stuff going on under the hood, more room to move. Do like Planejob with his dieselated Metro, drop in a modest three-cylinder Kubota mill and laugh past all the gas stations. No one will expect it to be fast so there's one performance aspect you don't have to worry about. Just make it work, upgrade to newer equipment, etc.

Greetings elhigh,

Only reason why I was debating on Pinto/Pacer/Chevette is because I've seen these cars hold up in demo derbies. I for one am sadden when I see old iron wasted like that and myself prefer to run Luminas.
I'd love the idea of a kabota diesel out of a refer unit (believe that's where most of them are sourced). If I go the diesel route, I'm guessing I would store it in the winter and revive the Saturn for winter driving. I plan to keep the Saturn as a back up car because I hate driving the 98 Chevy crew cab 3500 4x4 to and from work. Well actually I prefer driving it, just hate the 10-12mpg from the under powered 5.7.
I know there is mileage to be had in classic cars, just the norm is to throw big motors in them and burn the tires off. Which is fun, but my 60 Chevy truck is what I do that in :).

The $1 milk is the best!

I'm digging the Chevette idea. Not so much the Pinto because I think they were heavier, though the Pinto beats the Chevette, style-wise, all day long. Then again, there are four door Chevettes to be had, and I don't think there were any four door Pinto models at all. Flip a coin, there.

Hmm. If you could find one of those old Pinto kammback wagons, that would look pretty good, provide some decent cargo space. I don't think you'd have to work too hard to find hardware that would fab into it, lots of Ford oily bits will screw right in. And we already know the 2.3 DOHC should be a drop-in replacement, if you wanted to retain some original- or near-original-spec equipment to put it back together when you wanted to sell it on.

+1 on not driving your project in winter. Especially an older, hard to find ride. My grandmother - she lived in Litchfield, about an hour west of the Twins - gave me her 92 Colt Vista when she got too old to drive it, turned out it had pretty much rusted completely through the pinch weld all the way around the body. The only thing holding the car together was gravity and inertia. It even had corrosion cracks in the driveshaft.

Yeah, Mn is pretty hard on cars. I know the demo derby guys well and the promoter has a close contact in Wyoming with a pile of old cars that he's bringing back all the time, so sourcing a classic won't be an issue. I know for a fact there are a pile of RWD compacts there. I'm a GM guy but I easily overlook that fact when it comes to any classic.

Love that Pinto project... 25% increase in FE. Love the Chevette idea too.

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EDIT: And good memory on the fuel economy gain, Elhigh:

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