well, if your gonna be beating the shit out of the car. your going to be running into problems no matter what. whether its suspension parts breaking, engine parts failing, door panels busting from your body moving from side to side, etc.
whats your budget to start out with? what country do you live in?
in my eyes, i dont think it really matters what car you start out with...all the japanese performance cars can be equally as good as the other. depends if you want brand new or older, 15k or 30k, AWD or RWD, etc.
shop around..what do you like? drive a few? find out if you like AWD in the corners or RWD. just do some testing of your own and some researching. im sure you will be happy with any of the japanese performance cars out there.