For me this comes down to insurance, I recently looked at a Modded Abarth 595 and the insurance was 4x as much, the Turismo with 165bhp as standard is £200, an Abarth with intercooler, stage 2 remap, performance exhaust etc. is over £800.

Apparently insurance co's can check if you have been chipped (all to do with the checksum) in which case no insurance.

Personally I would choose a car that was built to meet it's performance, if modded then everything else should be upgraded to the same level.....but then I am probably a lot older than you.

My 500 has 177bhp after tune4performance remap. Insurance went from £290 to £360. Easily worth it the difference the remap made. Plus the extra torque. I’d post the graph but any pics I upload seem to disappear into the ether.