Need Dinghy Ideas, but not a Truck/Jeep/SUV

I went through this same thinking awhile back. It had to be a daily driver with at least 40 mpg's. All the Jeeps and other SUV's were terrible on gas mileage. My wife has a Honda CRV the best we ever got was 29 mpg Hi way and ave about 23 mpg. My current tow is a 2002 Toyota Corolla 5 speed manual that still gets 40 mpgs on the Hi way. It has about 160k miles and I know I will have to replace it someday. I looked at a Nissan Versa, Chevy Cruse, Elantra , Focus, Fiesta, and a few other small cars. What I learned from test driving and looking at specs was that in many cases the larger cars (one step from the smallest) got better gas mileage with more room and still weighed under 3000 lbs. The other thing I learned was that the newer Corolla and Civc were no longer flat tow-able even though they were manual transmissions. I had a few other requirements like a higher ground clearance and a back seat to fold down to store a bike. My top replacement was the Versa followed by the Cruse, Focus, and Elantra. An older Civic and Corolla would also work. I would be interested in folks that have these cars and how they are working out for them.