Yes, I2C based temperature sensors would work well. Consider the onewire variety of devices, there are several good sensors that can be remotely mounted with a small wire.

The Saturn’s electronics aren’t sophisticated enough to implement a lean burn system simply, and so [Robot Cantina] did what any of us might have done: hacked it in with an Arduino.

Built your very own parking sensors for the car using nothing more than an Arduino board and cheap components you can find online ...