Only thing with the civic is its not easy to get big power without spending silly money -unlike all the turbo cars, a remap and its easily faster than the civic as my mate found out the embarasing way..
He had one brand new and ended up throwing A LOT of money at it and had a turbo conversion done, it was fast but still lost loads of money on it
Id get a new S3 or focus RS if i was to get a new car, as much as i like civics, they are not quite wild enough for me to go new skool