This summer a friend of mine replaced his 22 mpg (real world number) Suburu Forrester with a 32 mpg (again, in the real world) Mini Cooper.

He feels like he should be nominated for sainthood, except, alas, he is a practicing Buddhist.

He did get rid of a stick shift in favor of a 6-speed automatic which was a major motivating factor. Still, the new car cost $26K and still is 3 mpg south of the magic number decreed by the Obama EPA.