Bring Back the Ford Escort

I'm interested in the SmartCar, but I have the burden of three kids. So, I've started to look at alternatives such as the Fit and Yaris.

During the late 1990's and early 2000's my Dad and I both drove Ford Escorts. Bare bones, manual transmission Escorts. And, even back then, in these very non-technological cars, we averaged 35 miles to the gallon. On some memorable long highway trips (Boston to Orlando, Boston to Baltimore) we got almost 40 miles to the gallon. Why not bring back the tried and true cars that ran well? My Dad's Ford ran for 11 years, and had over 200K on it before my brother ran it into a marsh. And, we're not car people who know how to fix things, so it wasn't like we provided extraordinary life support for these cars.