I work at Ford, drive them all the time, and one of the service advisors there owns one. He has put a lot of money into upgrading it (full exhaust, clutch, flywheel, pullies, nitrous) and still only managed high 14's/low 15's at the track. For the money you can do a lot better. There's a reason Ford stopped making the contour (aka the Mercury Mistake). I'm just really not impressed, but maybe you should go try a test drive first.
oh yeah, we have four of us at work who drive maximas, and the guy with the contour said if he had to do it all over again he would have gotten a maxima instead.
THat's why I'm shopping for a new maxima for myself now.