Personally, I'm not a big fan of pony cars. I think F-bodies are one of the ugliest cars around.
However,
Honda owners tend to be too-proud of their cars too. (powered by Honda all over the place, hell Honda isn't even winning F1 anymore.) Most honda owners that I know/met overrated their cars.
Honda created the Civic to be an economy car. Nothing more than that. They want good reliable car with good mileage. On the other hand, pony cars are DESIGNED to be FAST on the straights. Now which car do you think'll win?? of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. It is possible to have a turbocharged econobox that can run quicker than a V8. But in the long run, the V8 will win.
Look at some of the best the Ferraris: F355 has a V8. F360 has a V8. F40 has a Turbocharged V8. Why do you think they come with a V8, and not a turbocharged 4?
I can say that 99.9% of the time, when a civic owner comes in bragging about smoking pony cars, he/she knows sh1t about cars. As I've said, there will be exceptions. If you know something about cars, you'll know that a FWD econobox is not the 1st thing you want when it comes to racing. If you drive a civic, I'm not insulting your car or anything. It's just a fact. Honda owners, look at your car's godfather: the NSX (which is a fine sportscar, btw). Is it FWD?
Now an integra, or a prelude is a step better than the civic. It's designed with a little sport car image in mind. Neverthless, Honda created them not as a pure-performance car. So, yes you can turbo charge your integra and kick a V8's butt... but in the long run the integra will lose. (on the straights)
I mean, take BMWs for example. When people refer to them as sport sedans, they're serious. It's a sedan, with sportscar like dynamics. They are FAST on the track. (if you argue that, you need to do more research on sports car racing scene) Still, even the M series BMWs are NOT designed with drag racing in mind (yes, the new M5 too). And although BMWs will be faster than pony cars on the track, in the long run, they will lose to pony cars on the straight.(let's exclude the new M5 out of this one.

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On the other hand, some pony car owners can be very close minded. Although most 4 cylinders today are meant for econoboxes, that doesn't mean that 4 cylinders are slow. If you still doubt this, you need to do more reading.
Now you're asking: I want performance, but I don't like pony cars. Get an older performance-oriented cars. (RX7 comes to mind.) But make sure you have one thing straight: Performance WILL cost you reliability. That's the general rule. If you have a performance car that's reliable, it's either the car is not at its maximum capacity, or you've been lucky.
You want performance, you'll need to get to know your car more. Because when you buy those older sport cars, they WILL need maintenance, and if you're not familiar with the mechanics of your car, you'll burn a lot of money on maintenance.
That's long enough I think.