Or to make it simple, tell him you don't have an American car, you have a European car. The Contour was not, nor was it ever meant to be, an American car. It was a failed attempt at a "world car" because it was too much of a European car for American tastes.
His Civic will virtually always beat you in a 1/4 mile drag.
But in an actual race, you've got him hands-down. The Civic couldn't dream of keeping up in the turns.
And racing is where it's at. Anybody can mod any car to go real fast. Even a full-size Dodge Ram can break a 13 second 1/4 at 108MPH if you throw enough mods at it.
Racing takes knowing what to mod, involves trade-offs in speed and performance, and of course lots of driving skill.
Last time I checked, Civics didn't race professionally in Rally or Autocross events. Your car (or what is essentially a modded version of it) does.
