bluesmoke, i'd deffo start with the lower powered 2.0 if i were you... the V6 will catch you out as a new driver... knock about in the 2.0 for a while till you get used to it, THEN move upto the higher powered ones... my XR4i (2.8 v6) caught me out a few times at first (all coulda been fatal) and i'd been driving a few years and in that time owned much more powerful cars. even now after i been driving RWD or almost a year i'm not ina position where i feel "comfortable" going sideways

the 2.0 is VERY tuneable (more so than the V6)