Well, is your dad planning on using the car on the track a lot, a little, or never; because that has a big effect IMO. If he plans to go to the track frequently I would say your best bet would be a Z06, very fast in all respects and pretty cheap to buy a used one and maintain it.
Also...Elise would be wonderful, although I fear they may end up out of your price range when all is said and done with the U.S. version...
Maybe a kit car? There are some Lotus Super 7 kits, in fact there's a guy down here that makes a kit with the Celica GT-S engine (same as Elise I believe) and offers it for $35K completely assembled and ready to drive, however that maybe to harsh for a daily driver, but it would still be cool. 8)
I would stay away from a Lotus Esprit, a neighbor of mine had one and it was a great car...but it was always sitting in the drive way, he was afraid to drive it because something always broke when he drove it. :roll: Yeesh...stay away from Ferraris, or any Italian cars unless you want horrendous repair bills.
Scooby's are nice...but base WRXs aren't the best handlers, they have a lot of AWD & crappy tire induced understeer, but its better with the STi.
If it were me, I would get an Elise no questions asked; I would sell the wife's jewelry or something to come up with the difference.
