Depends what you are after, its good to think outside the square
and see if there are any other options or possibilities.

Even the Escort with 900c turbo has the following Performance
0-100Km/h - 5,2 Sec.
0-402m - 13,8Sec.
That is fast for a heavier car than a 1200 or 1000, there are
95% plus 1200s that struggle to get that perf with an A series.

http://www.edison2.com/tech-specs/
the above link interests me for another angle which I made a
mistake about and uses 250cc supercharged engine with 370kg
final weight and a huge 40hp :)
Well it still has performance better than most cheap hatches.

Its like when I first owned an mx5 back in 89, It only had a 1.6
that is lame by performance standards but the car felt sporty,
sounded good and handled great.

I also owned a honda z600 that spun to 10,000rpm and although
I was only doing like 60kmh at that rpm in 2nd it was fun
A sports car can be different things for different people.