Suggestions for a vehicle?

It all depends on what you want. There are a lot of options, depending on how much money you have to spend and what kind of car you are looking for. Maybe if you gave a little more details on what exactly it is you want (two seater sports car, 2+2 coupe, sedan, wagon lol, suv, motorcycle, truck, jeep, etc) we could give you better suggestions instead of just shooting in the dark.

Additional Spam:

Originally Posted by The_Melomane

If you're going for mileage you probably want an Asian car. They're pretty good for that.

I'm not so sure about that. The Opel Kadett and Opel GT with their 1.1L ohc engine both got better than 40mpg... this was in the 60's and 70's, carb'd engines not even fuel injected. With a fuel injection system both of those cars see greater than 50mpg.

My Opel GT (1.9L high compression engine) gets low 30's for fuel economy... and it is a sports car. If you want to see the ultimate do a search for the Opel Eco-Speedster.

Originally Posted by Eco-Speedster

During initial testing the 112 hp concept car reached a maximum speed of more than 155 mph while fuel consumption on the combined cycle was an incredible 113 mpg.

If you want fuel economy get a small car with a small engine, just because it is an Asian built car does not mean it will get better mileage. The Chevy Sprint for example got better than 50mpg highway and the mid 40's for in town. The VW TDI engines all get better mpg than the Chevy Sprint with the added bonus of a great deal more torque (makes the car feel sporty ) and it is available in a sedan so it has more space.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Duo Maxwell

Right about lower insurance and better gas mileage, wrong about the bike being similar to a motorcycle, though.

It really all depends on what your goals are for owning this vehicle. If it's strictly for transportation purposes, I'd say fuck it and get yourself an old volkswagen beetle with the flat 4 in it. You can lighten the shit out of it, you can either modify the flat four 8 ways from sunday or completely ditch the engine all together and go with an electric conversion kit. It'll be an assload cheaper than buying any new car, if you get one before model year 1975 you won't ever worry about shit like smogging it and it'll be fucking dirt cheap to insure. There would be the issue of making the car safer, but a roll-cage and five point belts is an extremely effective and cheap alternative to other SRS options, and would only add to the comfort/drive/survivability of the vehicle.

I know a guy with a V6 from a 300z in the back of his bug. He said that it only cost him 600 dollars to have someone do the swap for him, he used an adapter so that he could use a built vw tranny. The vw weights somewhere around 2000lbs with the added weight of the engine. A stock VW type 1 would make for a great commuter car. Replace the carb with fuel injection of the later models and now you have a reliable semi-modern engine, I'm sure it could all be done (including the cost of the car) for under 3k and because of the simplicity of the design you could do all of your own repairs.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

500 - 600cc motorcycle is usually a good range to learn with. Parts for motorcycles are often a lot more expensive to replace. You also need to consider that you would need good riding gear (helmet, jacket, gloves, etc) and those are not the items I'd want to go cheap on either.

What a lot of people don't realize is that not all motorcycles get great gas mileage, The Kawasaki Ninja 650R for example averages 45mpg, there are cars that get better fuel economy than that :/ it is only when you get into the motorcyles with engines 500cc and below do the mpg numbers exceed what you can see in cars.

From the sound of it though you are probably better off getting a car.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Zephyrin

Bullshit. Unless you buy a brand-new hybrid, that's not going to happen.

VW Golf TDI and Honda CRX are two examples that come to mind that get better than 45mpg. :/ Neither of which are hybrids, one of them is from the 80's and the other has almost as much torque as a V6. The smaller bikes get anywhere from 60 - over 100mpg, which with the exception of specially built cars like the eco speedster that Opel built you just aren't going to get that kind of fuel economy with a car.

Originally Posted by Opel Eco Speedster

During initial testing the 112 hp concept car reached a maximum speed of more than 155 mph while fuel consumption on the combined cycle was an incredible 113 mpg.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?