A race car for 16k? Nawww
In it's stock form, you can have more fun than most other cars in its price range. But it'll need to drop some weight and be tuned a bit to become a race car. Plus, as for paddle shifters, it'll need true sequential shifting. Right now, it's just a simulated sequential shifting mode from a traditional automatic transmission.

Though I have to say, the paddle shifters brought back some memories of playing Need for Speed on a gaming wheel w/ paddles in my dorm room back in college.