If you're looking for a good reliable car, with decent gas mileage and a decent amount of fun, a Honda is a good place to start, you can look at some Toyotas too, but they're just not as much fun in your price range.. For 8k you can probably pick up an AP1 (First Gen S2000), but you're probably going to rack up a crazy amount of tickets seeing as cops are dickheads to young people in nice cars. After that you can get a nice EK (98-00 Civic) Coupes are nice and are about 2k cheaper than your budget which leaves room for suspension and wheels if you go Rota. Eg's (92-95 Civic) are also good, you can pick them up for 2k completely stock and build them up, but with buying an older car normally come quite a few problems. And then you can go for the newer civics, and maybe an RSX? I don't know what they go for nowadays. My recommendation is get an EK because you'll still have a decent amount of cash leftover, and you'll be getting a fairly new car. Just my 2 cents.
