It may not be big enough for your purposes or particularly cute, but just for the record, my 2000 Honda Civic DX hatchback is *still* getting 36+ miles per gallon. It was 40 when it was new. And Honda has just this year surpassed Toyota in Consumers Union's reliability index.

I seem to recall that 40 mpg didn't seem especially outstanding to me at the time, but these days I keep seeing models "boasting" about 25-28 (which causes me to scratch my head in puzzlement). And then of course there are the hybrid SUV's that get an "amazing" 21 mpg....