If a simple cowl scoop pisses off the faithful, putting a G3 in anything but a muscle era mopar will catch a lot of people by surprise and garner questions of "why?".

Are emissions a factor at all? This will determine what era of car you want to pursue. Additionally, availability is also a factor. An early 70s Colt might be cool, but findings a decent one may prove difficult.

For newer stuff you could look at a Conquest, Stealth, Avenger. High Performance Mopar magazine did a small block into a Conquest swap way back in the 90s that was kind of cool. I thought about a Stealth conversion at one time.

Anything AMC could be interesting. Obviously Gremlin, Hornet, Matador, but what about a 4wd Eagle wagon? In the Jeep world, 2wd, 2dr full size Wagoneer from the mid 70s? Or even a 2wd, 2dr mini Cherokee from the mid 80s? Lower then down some, make a stealth handling ride.

Any of the Exner era cars are cool looking. The Forward Look was pretty swoopy, but solid versions of these may be either impossible or very expensive to find. Early 50s stuff isn't seen much, but it isn't very attractive either.

Street rod era stuff? Imitation fuel altered that is street legal.? Something that has crossed my mind in the past is a street legal ,oval track modified with a 30s era fiberglass body and 325/50x15 tires on all four corners. This may be easy to do. Pick up a used IMCA, WISSOTA or some other used race car and add street equipment to it.

Really want to do fab work, make a rear engined, wheely style of truck off an '80s D chassis.

Don't know about your region, but I've been looking in craigslist for sub $1000 cars and there really isn't anything very interesting popping up where I live. Most of it is 4 dr, early 90s econo box crap.