well roodster, with money, i have always agreed on AT, s2ki, clublexus, that with enough of $, you can do anything heck, hire a few engineers and make your own supercar (liek those with already made body, but need a v-8 to drop in (customer choice of v-8 engine).
I am a total import car guy...S2000, Lexus and Supra's (well, I dig BMW, but no MB)
However, the biggest point in comparing $20,000 cars to supercars are
#1: pimpness
Also, anyone who can afford a F-50, I'm sure, can afford to mod that car as well. NOS? Bigger turboes? Heck, strip everything out purely for straight line racing. ...with a $1 million car, one could do $1.5 million mods to make it worth $2.5 million if you take the ratio of $20,000 + $30,000 = $50,000.
Of course, most "pratical" person would not mod their supercar, but you never know....its like the venom (I think) superchargers for the Viper. The Viper is already fast, but there is a sense for Need-4-Speed. I mean, who really needs 1,300 hp for everyday driving? Probably for the tracks, but, for streets?
edit: its kinda unfair to take the best of something (souped up Supra runing low 10's against a stock supercar)...you need to compare the best against the best, or stock vs stock.
The most common flame-fest on CL is M3 (new ones) vs IS300 manuel. There is no doubt in ANYONE's mind, no matter HOW GOOD driver is in IS300, it won't win against the M3. Now, for the price difference of $30,000, you can drop a stage 4 SRT supercharger to get nearly 650 rwhp, without NOS. Now, that will own a STOCK M3. But then, the M3 people will say, heck, we get a stage 4 supercharger, and it will kill the modded IS300. So on and so forth. But if I had $60,000 to start with, I would not hesitate to get the M3 rather than an oversized Accord (that's my opinion of the IS300 and I am a LExus fan too...so...)
static911