Originally Posted by
roadgator
the thing is, even the "small" cars have grown steadily in size to keep up in the highway arms race.
20 years ago, a honda civic weighed right about 2000lb. now the honda civic weighs about 3000lb, and yet it is still considered a "compact" car. How the **** does that add up? EVERY car has steadily gotten larger, and average fuel economy has plateaued (or maybe even dropped) in spite of better engines.
My car's 20 years old and weighs just over 2,000. It's funny, many times when I park somewhere, I lose it behind SUV's, full-size sedans, fat people, etc... It's got a 200,000 mile 16v engine with some light tuning and I can still get 28-35mpg.
Lighter cars made out of light-weight alloys/other materials coupled with new engine technology would yield insane mileage ratings.