It’s a shame Light Sport Aircraft (LSAs) never really caught on. Most of them use Rotax engines which take regular unleaded gasoline. They’re much more fuel efficient too!
“Comparing charts I see 506 registrations of LSA-type aircraft in 2020 and 358 registrations of GA aircraft in 2020,” Steve notes. “Thus, registrations of LSA-type aircraft account for more than half of the single-engine piston aircraft registered in 2020, 59% from data analyzed for this report.”
https://generalaviationnews.com/2020/11/02/up-or-down-how-fl...
Here's hoping for a full revision to the LSA rules that allows 152/72/82 and Piper Cherokees into the category; that would open up Sport pilots to thousands of new aircraft they were unable to fly for essentially no reason. It's painfully obvious that the FAA's artificial limitation of 1320 lbs was completely arbitrary and is overall a detriment to the safety of pilots operating under the sport rules. Frankly, I think/hope that recertifying the majority of standard category aircraft as PSAs will help drive down costs and spur some new innovation in GA.
Often I'm the only one that rents the Skycatcher at KPAO in a given month, and there's basically only two LSAs that are accessible to rent nearby (that Skycatcher at KPAO and a SportStar at KRHV).
I could see some resurgence in the market with the large number of late-70s light aircraft starting to become unmaintainable though. It's hard to say with the opposing force of the shrinking pilot population though.