Hey,
I'm going to be moving here in a few months and i want a podunk commuter car that get's ~40 mpg and has a little character that i can do a little work on. I think i want a 70's Honda, Datsun/Nissan, something like that. I really want a 1973-1978 Honda Civic but i've only been able to find 2 on collectercartrader.com in the whole country. Where's the best place to find cars this old? Most car searches only go back to 1980.

Thanks, and if this is a terrible idea let me know.

cars.com or autotrader.com...one of them has an advanced search for older cars.

edit:just checked it is cars.com and you can search 1982 and older...its one easy place to use.

Car magazines and news papers are a start - usually the little cars did not end up at car shows - but I would suggest maybe a 90's Mazda - like a 323 or a GLC - 70's cars are mostly things like Chevys, Buicks, and old style boat cars...
Also check out your local junk yards - sometimes they will have a well worn but restored monster some even classics

But again I suggest looking for a little Mazda - I still get 36 mpg with Old Red - and I just added some McPherson struts cause I used her until the front end wore out.... and Ocassionally they will even show up at a Mazda dealer..

Watch the old 70s Japanese cars - they tended to have engine troubles if someone ran them on cheap oil and cheap gas....but if they were well cared for - some are collectors items...

Cars.com is pretty good. Thanks for that. There is a suprising number of cars that would work there and searching is easy. Not so much for the autotrader classic car site. I'll keep an eye out there and in the enwspapers. I dont need one now but i'm not going to want to pay for the gas or put the miles on my 8 that driving 100 miles a day would rack up.

Any other make/models that would be good choices? 40+ mpg and around $3k?

You are really looking for gold in todays market - you might consider motorcycle with 75 - 100 mpg. I don't remembers Hondas as getting much more than 35....

Shoot for fuel injection at least which for most cars would be the early 80's and later but before all the heavy safety/luxury features became mandatory/wanted (the early 90's) This, and the desire for more power latter on, is the reason cars peaked in the 80's as far as mpg.

Check the link...

http://www.mpgomatic.com/2007/10/18/super-cheap-high-mpg-cars-1983/

autotrader is still your best bet for any kind of car in my opinion

The 73-78 Civic supposedly does 40-48 but who knows if that's accurate. I really want one of those but they're so hard to find. I may have to venture into the 80's but they are so damn ugly! As for a motorcycle, I live in Washington, so that's a no. It's 80 and sunny right now so a motorcycle sounds great. But tommorrow it could easily rain. It's lame.