Regarding "flood ability": Best you go to each casa and ask to see the engine bays of the cars in question.

I'm foggy on what I saw when I checked out the Honda Civic 1.8 (I was only looking at the engine, not the air intake), but I'm pretty sure the air intake duct is headlight level.

Old Lancer air intakes are bumper level, but the new one might be different.

The Mazda3 has a relatively high air intake, hood level, I think.

The Ford Focus... not sure... but the Lynx had a hood level intake, I think the Focus might be similar.

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Rule of thumb: wherever the tube of your intake is, you shouldn't cross floods where the intake is only a few inches higher than the flood, because bow waves from the car or from passing trucks may submerge it.

Like I've said before... if you're not using a snorkel equipped vehicle... if the water's touching the body, don't risk it. It's painful having a car dried out after a flood... it's even more painful repairing an engine that's been hydrolocked.