Alright, do this for me. Find a car in the civic's price-range that has comparable reliablity and a similar sized engine. Ill save you some time, you just cant do it. Sure you can go buy a Porsche Carerra GT, but who the hell has the money for that? OR, you could go spend about 15k (just an estimate) on a civic thats in good shape, put all the mods that you could ever want on it, and still have a shitload of $ left over. You could get close to the same numbers of SOME cars. (with the exception of some "super" cars) And you will have a lot more fun in the process by taking a good machine, and making it kick ass.

Just my thoughts......(anticipating the bitching of a couple people)