if the srt4 didn't have a turbo in it noone would be buying them except poor people. who would buy a neon with the intentions of building it up into a fast car. That thing would fall apart in a few years. My opinion is that, the only reason dodge came out with a turbo neon is cuz they notived how popular the import tuning game got after the "Fast and Furious" movies and they wanted a piece of it. If you notice Honda was the only company that stayed true to the game and did NOT add a turbo to their 4 cylinder cars but still made them faster. Mitsubishi, Dodge they both added turbos to their cars to make them fast, but look at the new Civic SI that makes 197 hp without a turbo. Now that's what I call engineering.
Anyone can buy a fast car and brag about it, but it's a lot harder to make a mediocre car just as fast. Plus you get a sense of pride from it because it's all because of you, and not because you bought it that way. That's just my opinion.
Would I take an SRT4 if it was given to me?? Of course. But I would give a lot of respect the Civic owner/tuner who almost outran me.