It's all about class and style chaps. Can you imagine that scene from Oceans 12 with the Night Fox at his villa on Lake Como and instead of the classic sports car, he showed up in a Civic Type R?
No.
For me, it doesn't matter how fast it is or whether it smashes a Golf GTI into oblivion, I would only ever buy the Golf.
While we're on the subject, lap times at the Nurburgring are also utterly irrelevant to me. I don't understand the fascination with these at all, they have no real world relevance. I've been there twice and taken my 993 turbo and z4mc on it and both times I got passed by ‘lesser' track set up cars even though I was trying my best and felt quick. As Adam says, a good Elise or Caterham will **** all over a gt3 or silly looking Aston.
I did get passed by Walter Rorhl in a Merc CLK Black series at the carousel like I was standing still too. I was embarrassed until I saw him in the car park at the end of the lap. Felt slightly better !!