You would be surprised at how good the likes of Minis and Mk1 Golfs are At the last event I was at The fastest time was set by a Radical (built for competition, rear wheel drive, light weight) second fastest was set by a Mini!! It beat 2 other Radicals lots of old single seaters, an Evo 7 which is amazingly prepped and this was in an event with nearly 40 cars! They all have the advantages and disadvantages, to much power in a rear wheel drive car can be hard to drive in a straight line four wheel drive cars don't coner amazingly unless they have very expesive and high tech diffs to balance the power and FWD cars suffer from fast starts. Like I said all have a disadvantage but at these kind of events it really comes down to drive technique.