On swiss streets you can drive max. 80 km/h (120 on highways). I've had a Porsche 944 turbo, which did about 110km/h in 2nd gear. If you were driving through a village (50km/h limit) and accelerated when you got to the "exit" of the village... theoretically, i've always broken the speed limit when fully using the 2nd gear (for fun). So there you go, in this regard, a 300hp car is already pointless on public streets.
If you think like that, you'll be fine with an Opel Fiesta and 50hp.
1000hp is overkill however, kinda true.