VW GTI VR6 would be a good choice in my opinion if he doesn't want to do any mods. If he doesn't mind a bit of tinkering (while keeping reliability!) but losing the warranty I'd go with the VW GTI 1.8t and theres endless things you can do with that. For about $1,000 you can have a car in the low 14's, if not even better, and it will still be as reliable as stock. If he's considering the PT turbo, why not the SRT-4 then? That would also be another choice. Both of those cars are well below $28K, too.
