In which case either a classic or unloved model. Even a low rate of depreciation on an expensive model is more expensive that a £1K car. And you can try the exotics but you could easily get badly caught out.
Citroen Xantia tdi for about £1500 would be my choice. More reliable than its reputation and minimal depreciation.
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If you are looking at spending money on a car up to 100grand, believe me you can NEVER just drive for the price of petrol. Its a very flawed theory.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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believe me you can NEVER just drive for theprice of petrol. Its a very flawed theory.
Buy any car with an MOT, don't service it, chuck it away the moment anything goes wrong.
You could buy a fair few old bangers (and taxi rides) out of the interest on £100,000.
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Just getting rid of depreciation is not the only issue, though, as if you need to take account of the loss of interest on the capital. A £100k car will be costing you as much as £6k/yr in lost interest, more if you have a mortgage (as you'd have paid it off with the £100k).
Agree with AC - spend around the £750 to £1500 mark and you could do well. See the recent thread about the Xedos for £700 - another nice car that's costing the owner buttons.
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Bangernomics Omega / Cavalier / Mondeo / whatever. Even "zero depeciation classics" need storage / maintenance.
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Yep, gotta be practical. You might get zero depreciation or even a profit on a highly desirable expensive car, but you also take risk. Furthermore, putting miles on it takes value off. Then on an expensive motor there's insurance and maintenance. Plus how convenient would it be? Will a Gallardo or whatever be easy to drive and park? Will you worry where you're leaving it? Will it do what you want it to?
The best way of minimising depreciation is to buy a cheap car. Ignore the % depreciation and look at the £££.
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Anything driven by a current pope/ Princess Di, or both if possible.
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It won't cost you £100,000, but the Chrysler 300C seems to be doing a good job of minimising depreciation for the moment. So does the Mini. But you have to watch out - its a situation driven purely by supply and demand, and all you need is for Chrysler or BMW to push out a few more units and the bottom falls out of your resale market.
You might also have some success with exotica for which there's a waiting list (e.g. Ferrari, Porsche), but you'd have to get onto that waiting list first!
As pointed out earleir, you might minimise the % depreciation, but on £100,000, even 10% loss in value is a lot of money. Case in point: a new 2.7 V6 diesel XJ sovereign costs 105,000 here in Ireland. At one year old, it'll sell on for 83,000 euro. 21% loss - ouch! Buy an S Class S320 instead for the same 105,000 and it'll "only" lose 12% in a year. But that's still 12,500 euro down the drain!
That 12,500 would also buy you anything ranging from a classic 1972 280 SE to '99 E300 diesel auto - and bear in mind I'm quoting Irish prices (that's the information I have to hand) where depreciation is slower and prices on older prestige cars stronger than in the UK. Pop a private plate on it and you have a real depreciation buster - if it only lasts a year, you've still broken even against the new car, and you've the balance of your £100,000 available to earn money for you.
The next best route is probably to do what Cattleman enquired about this morning - buy new (or better still, nearly new) and run the car until it dies!
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Buy an S Class S320 instead for the same 105,000 and it'll "only" lose 12% in a year. But that's still 12,500 euro down the drain!
In last weeks Auto Express there was an article about instant 'off the forecourt' depreciation. There were some comical case studies; one bloke bought an S320 and got rid of it after one month because "I didn't like how it drove", he traded it in for an Audi Q7 and lost £13k, after getting less satisfactory offers from Merc dealers. He thought it would not depreciate much because there was a waiting list.
There was another clown with more money than sense who bought a Smart ForFour and kept it 9 weeks and lost £3500, a year before that he lost £3200 when he traded in a Daihatsu Copen he had only owned for 9 days! In 1997 he lost £5k trading in a six week old Suzuki X90. He stated, "I get excited about new cars and order before driving them. Sometimes they don't live up to my expectations."
The blurb said he had been "caught out 3 times". A more apt description IMHO would be that he had been a complete idiot three times.
;o)
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Anything driven by a current pope/ Princess Di, or both if possible.
Does the current Pope, or did any of his predecessors, drive? Presumably he is a member of the Institute of Infallible Drivers.
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Current Pope did drive - much excitement when his Golf was sold, ISTR.
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Some doubt there. Also he was only a cardinal at the time. In his younger days he must have left a whole trail of memorabilia waiting to be collected - rubber duck, teddy bear, Lego set, pedal car (motoring link), iPod, video store membership card.
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If the original query is so someone can drive an expensive motor for a year at minimal cost for a bit of fun I'd be tempted to join an executive car club. For the sake of 4,000 miles a year buying a car makes little sense. I'd rather have club membership so I can sample a number of different motors.
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