gas prices down - commuter car values?

[Project84]

I'm wondering, because I consider myself ALWAYS in the market to buy another car, new, used, or salvage.... now that gas prices have fallen substantially, if they flatten out and stay relatively cheap, lets say, below $3/gal, if commuter car prices will sudden fall back to their standard values.

I really want to find myself a cheap little SC1 or SL1 saturn, or better yet, a Protege, Civic, ZX2, or even a Prizm/Corolla, or Metro.

Right now however, prices of these cars went from easily available and $2k-$3k or less, to VERY hard to find and $3,500 or more.

I'm for sure sticking w/ hypermiling, afterall, I've just gotten my feet wet and see no reason not to try to improve mileage to save money... but I still want to purchase a different car to do so in.

I'm also in the market to buy my first house, and not knowing how far my commute to/from work will end up being, I want to get the most efficient vehicle I can NOW before I make the move.

Can we try to talk about commuter car values and predictions w/o getting into a big opinion debate over what gas prices will be doing a year from now?

-John