The used car market’s selection has never been more enticing. We pick our favourites, from family haulers to V12 GTs
There has never been as much choice on the used car market as there is today.
The almost overwhelming variety of options produces great value in many corners of a multifaceted market, and oversupply makes depreciation a car-buying dreamer’s friend.
What we’ve got here is a mix of models for those dreamers: cars that are decidedly more practical, some off-season convertibles costing less than you might pay next spring, cars that you may have forgotten altogether and cars with depreciation that mirrors their ferocious acceleration.
And to finish, some indulgences that are more affordable than you probably first thought.
“Our idea of drop-top heaven” was Autocar’s summary of the 718 roadster, and Weissach’s slice of open-roof nirvana is now available for as little as £23,000.
That’s for a car under 70,000 miles and with a full history. There’s a heap of choice across this wide price range, but manuals are relatively rare if pumping a clutch is your thing.
It’s a blown four-cylinder, but set your flat-six desires aside: this is a great car. And reliable, too.
Price range £23,000-£90,000
You can buy yourself a functioning but ageing R230 SL for well under £3000 if you enjoy endangering your wallet. Nothing wrong with an R230, apart from them being mildly corrosion-prone, and decent specimens are still around for a modest multiple of that figure.
A better SL, however, is the R231, a single-digit change denoting the aluminium-bodied, thoroughly re-engineered 2012 version. The Mercedes SL 400 is the one: 0-62mph slain in 4.3sec and better than 30mpg regularly possible.
Who needs a V8? The lighter six-cylinder yields keener turn-in, too. Faults are relatively few, but failed hydraulic ABC suspension can be a pricey fix. Just under £20k scores you a good one.
Price range £15,000-£31,000
It may be a mongrel of MX-5 and Fiat bits, but the Abarth version of the 124 Spider is a great drive, and to some eyes it’s a more handsome roadster than the Mazda on which it’s based.
They’re relatively rare, too, so hold their value well. Issues are few; just avoid the automatic, which seriously dulls a fun car.
Price range £14,000-£23,000
The 360 Modena, the first wholly new Ferrari developed under Luca di Montezemolo’s leadership, now costs less than the price of a new Boxster for even a relatively low-mileage, well-maintained example.
It’s still sophisticated, despite a low-tech dashboard, and, more importantly, still a great drive.
Price range £42,000-£95,000
For the price of a Dacia Duster, you can buy the near-polar opposite in the transformable shape of a Bentley convertible. At this money, the car might be a little leggy, but it will still be very smart.
Will it be expensive to run? Of course, but not crazily so, and it probably won’t be your daily driver, either.
The first-generation Conti is a reliable car, which is just as well: any significant engine work requires the magnificent W12 to be extracted first. But that’s very rare: this is an impressively durable car.
Price range £20,000-£60,000
Performance itself has never been an RS6 shortfall, but this version offers far more dynamic sophistication to complement its asphalt-assaulting brute-force capabilities.
We’re talking a post-2019 ‘C8’ model here, complete with mild-hybrid energy saving, and the Performance package offered from 2022.
Price range £95,000-£135,000
Truly practical, affordable and economical but not so stripped-out that you suffer, the Jogger is the rationalist’s family car. It will optionally seat seven, and it’s a moderately entertaining drive, despite its back-to-basics remit.
Higher trims get you sat-nav, heated seats and a well-sorted touchscreen infotainment system. Performance? There’s enough.
Price range £13,000-£25,000
The handsome, futuristic, spacious and swift (very swift, in fact, in 321bhp four-wheel-drive form) EV6 will take you a decent distance between charges.
It handles well, too, although the steering is numb and brake pedal feel can be slightly odd. Skoda’s Enyaq is arguably a better all-rounder, but it’s the Kia that’s the looker, and it’s better value as a used proposition.
Price range £22,000-£59,000
If you want a car whose bodywork is caressed with ostrich feathers during an 85-hour paint process (surely the list of desirous drivers is long), then consider a Mulsanne, the earliest examples of which now dip under £40k.
That’s a huge amount of luxury for BMW 320i money. No tailgate or folding seats, but the boot is vast, as are the four sumptuous seats within.
Price range £35,000-£175,000
If you like your cars cheap and ultra-rare yet practical, look no further. Chrysler’s UK division shifted just over 900 examples of this rebadged Lancia, which is in turn little more than a rebodied Fiat Bravo on a lengthened wheelbase.
So rear leg room is generous, if hardly a reason to trouble a dealer for a car that is otherwise very average. Still, it’s quite nicely styled, decently civilised and yours for peanuts.
Price range £1000-£2500
It looks exotic, yet you can buy a serviceable example for less than £2000. That will get you the 156bhp 1.6 Turbo (seek out the optional, ambience-boosting leather-faced dashboard).
RCZs are well made and have relatively few troubles. There’s also a diesel, an overly long-legged 197bhp petrol and, most covetable, the 267bhp R with a Torsen diff. Only 305 Rs came to the UK; you need £15k for a good one.
Price range £1800-£15,000
For unusual, breezily cheap thrills, try the oddball Wind, yours for as little as £1000. You get two seats, a cleverly hinged electric roof, a Renaultsport-tuned chassis and a choice of two motors.
The 99bhp 1.2 is an easy, torquey drive, while the 131bhp 1.6 needs revs to get ahead, but both are brisk. Remember the 72,000-mile cambelt change.
Price range £1000-£4000
You get an awful lot of refined Lexus V8 thump for your money with the RC F: its 470bhp 5.0-litre engine delivers 4.5sec 0-62mph runs and 167mph.
This rare coupé was on sale for almost a decade (there was a facelift in 2018), but even now there are fewer than 300 extant. BMW offers many better performance coupés, but this Lexus is far from short of allure, not least for its interestingly sculpted dashboard.
It’s extremely durable, too.
Price Range £21,000-£77,000
You can sit within the sumptuous confines of a DB11 for less than £60,000 these days. That’s getting on for one-third of the new price in 2017. Early cars came with Aston’s own V12; a Mercedes-AMG V8 option became available soon after.
The DB11’s seven-year life seems short compared with its DB9 predecessor’s 14 years, and the appearance last year of the DB12 has accelerated its depreciation.
But the DB11 is far from inadequate: at launch, we ranked this sharp-toothed grand tourer second only to Ferrari’s sensational F12. For one of those, you need more than double the money.
Price range £58,000-£110,000
A landmark McLaren and a slightly troubled beast that was decisively bettered by the 650S into which it morphed. That’s partly why values are low, despite early electronic issues having been retrospectively fixed.
A carbonfibre tub, 205mph potential and an exceptional chassis countered the potent V8’s dull blare compared with the Ferrari 458’s more soulful clamour. But the 12C is a fat 33% more affordable and still a fascinating car.
Price range £62,000-£93,000
It looked like the future and still does, but the out-there plug-in hybrid powertrain seems less alluring now. What you got was the 1.5 triple engine of a Mini, tuned to 228bhp, and a 129bhp electric motor, combining to yield 357bhp, 4.4sec to 62mph and at least 40mpg.
A green supercar, then? Not quite. Progress is swift and smooth rather than visceral. More exciting is the low price of entry for this gull-winged beauty.
Price range £27,000-£60,000
It has a bonnet the size of a ping-pong table, 612bhp and rather beautiful ‘floating’ D-pillars, and the 599 GTB is very fast.
But perhaps this car’s most enticing performance curve is the traditional V12 Ferrari arc of depreciation, which is why you can buy one of these magnificent beasts for less than a new BMW X5.
The saving should go some way to countering the holiday-equivalent servicing bills.
Price range £70,000-£120,000
This is a cheap car at the high-risk end of the price range. Yet the Granturismo is a surprisingly tough, reliable thing with few issues to scare those bold enough to buy.
Maintenance is affordable with specialists, although the V8’s fuel consumption is, well, noticeable, along with an appetite for brake pads. It’s heavy, which is why the early 4.2-litre model isn’t so quick; the 4.7 is more convincing.
Avoid the clunky MC Shift automated manual in favour of the ZF six-speed automatic, which best suits the Maserati’s lavish grand tourer ambience.
Price range £13,000-£75,000
Couldn’t live with the looks of the latest M2? Then go for this, the original, which is still a brilliant driver’s car. The earliest versions, with the 365bhp N55 engine, begin at £25k for a dual-clutch automatic or a little more for the rarer manual.
The Competition version, on sale from early 2019, provided 405bhp from BMW’s S55 motor and had sharper handling. Prices for these begin at £31k, but worry not if this is beyond your budget, because both versions are brilliant drives.
More brilliant still is the collectible CS, with 444bhp and many desirable tweaks, for which you need around £70k. All three are cast-iron classics.
Price range £25,000-£85,000
The oldest reborn A110s are now six years old, and this Alpine’s reputation as a superb driver’s car has barely diminished since. It’s almost a Goldilocks choice: not too expensive, not crazy fast but fast enough, not too big, not expensive to run and amazingly economical.
If you like driving rather than creating a visual and aural splash, this is the car. It looks pretty, too. Problems are few (the infamous failing fuel pump was fixed, eventually, with a recall), which is just as well, because service is patchy.
It’s better than a Cayman and unlikely to disappoint, although the infotainment is rubbish.
Price range £33,000-£88,000
The ‘FK8’ is one of the greatest hot hatches ever, and when you discover this for yourself, you will forgive it the aesthetic excesses of a triple-exit exhaust, a rear wing worthy of something normally kept in a hangar and the surplus of red Alcantara in the cabin.
Equally, you may love such dressing, but surely not as much as you will adore the way this car dispatches a wet, intestinal B-road or the noises it makes while doing so.
The infotainment isn’t great, nor is rear visibility, but you won’t care.
Price range £13,000-£75,000
Source: Autocar RSS Feed
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