Can anyone think of any cheap, underrated performance cars on the used market at the moment. I think there are a few undiscovered gems that would make great weekend cars for bangernomics money.
How about the Peugeot 306 xsi or the Nissan Primera GT? Both are highly rated by those who have driven them and good examples are little more than £1k.
Are there any other examples of cars that can provide such cheap thrills? The quirkier the better!
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Citroen ZX Volcane - almost the same car as the Pug but less pretty and less in demand. A friend bought a 73,000 mile, FCSH'd minter in November for £800 and it is ace to drive!
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Rover 800 V8? You can get them for a few hundered and stupidly quick and perhaps unreliable but as a sunday car might be ok.
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Rover 800 V8
Rattle, I assume you either mean Rover 800 v6 or an older Rover SD1? I thought only the SD1 and newer Rover 75/MG ever had a V8 engine.
Edited by rtj70 on 09/02/2009 at 00:32
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>> Rover 800 V8 Rattle I assume you either mean Rover 800 v6 or an older Rover SD1? I thought only the SD1 and newer Rover 75/MG ever had a V8 engine.
Rover 820 Turbo. Still one or two left! Or a 220 Turbo
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Aka Rover Sterling in the US. Consumers Union did a road test and remarked the door latches needed adjusting before they would close properly and build quality was dire.
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Hyundai coupe F2, very reliable which isn't always the case, you did want quirky.
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Late 80's Merc 420 SEC , not as well known as the 500/560 , but ignored by the modifiers and still a lovely V8
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Lancia Thema/Dedra Turbo, Rover 800/600 Turbo, Fiat Coupe 16V or mebbe 20V Turbo.
Volvo S40 t4
Risky, except perhaps the Volvo.
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Volvo T5. Quite a healthy appetite for tyres though :-)
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Citroen ZX Volcane -
Having had one I second that ~ we are talking about the 1.9 or 2.0 petrol aren't we, not the diesel?
;-)
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... The quirkier the better....
A Citroën CX GTi Turbo would fit the bill - in spades!
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Fiat Coupe 20v Turbo - ridiculously quick for the amount you can pick them up for. And also achingly beautiful.
Nissan 200SX - nearly as ridiculously quick (and RWD if you care about that sort of thing), but achingly dull to look at.
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Both the S/V40 T4 and 2.0T are quick in a straight line, and easily tuned too. They have monstrous intercoolers and are a reliable engine. Kalmar Union (the Volvo tuner) used to do a £40 bleed valve which upped the boost handily.
The torque steer is awesome as well :-D
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The earlier SEAT Leon Cupras (20 valve turbo, 180bhp) are getting cheap now (mod £2ks). Lovely car (used to have one). Can be chipped to 240+bhp too.
On to Volvos- early S60 T5s and 2.4Ts must be cheap, if you can find one.
Of course, most bang for buck is in a motorcycle, but that's really one for the Biker's Caff!
BW to all,
Alex.
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On the Volvo theme, how about this:
2001 S80 T6 111k miles. Straight-six 272bhp twin-turbo 2.8L engine, well specced and yours for only £1795.
As seen on Autotrader.
Bargain!
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Unfortunately, the S80 and S60 are about as 'quirky' as a magnolia-emulsioned wall :-(
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... about as 'quirky' as a magnolia-emulsioned wall...
It's just a name, call magnolia 'New England Sunrise' and it's trendy and interesting.
I accept making a Volvo trendy and interesting by changing its name is a bigger challenge, but I'm sure it could be done.
Edited by ifithelps on 09/02/2009 at 16:41
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volvo 850 t5
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I looked at a Volvo 960 7 seater a little while back - fantastic in a straight line and had the 7 seats we needed, all for £600 (and the seller would have gone down to £500). Bought a Ullysee instead though, which was quickly traded for an Espace.
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Alfa 156 GTa or 2.5? Rover SDi Vitesse? Apparently early GTa's can be got for 4K.
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Golf VR6 (Mk III), V6 4motion (Mk IV) & Corrado G60's are all immensly fast and can be had for next to nothing now (maybe not the Corrado).
E36 M3/328, Alfa 145 Cloverleaf, or Chavs favorite, Astra GSI 16v (Astra F) ............
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Astra GSI 16v (Astra F) ............
Every so often, a reasonable Astra mk2 GTE 16v comes up at this kind of money. These things are insanely fast, don't handle worth a pink fluffy dice, and are truly exhilarating to drive.
Still quicker than a mkV Golf GTI in a straight line, and with a Knight Rider digi-dash to boot. Probably terminal sill and arch rot, four different keys, an HPI report as long as your arm, and a cracked bulkhead too, but there you go.;-)
This was the first car I ever went in that gave that proper punch in the guts when the driver floored it. The C20XE is a legend.
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On a somewhat humbler level, drove my daughter's Mk 1 Clio the other weekend, not a 2 litre Williams but a 1.8 Sri (or something like that). It's got wide alloys, perhaps not standard, and was acquired as a write-off for £150 (damaged front bumper and headlight). Tidied up with the correct s/h parts at a cost of another two or three hundred quid, it is quite a nice little car with a distinctly Jekyll and Hyde sort of character, growling quietly about in traffic but with a considerable turn of speed when prodded, and very rapid acceleration from say 60 to 80 mph. Great on busy SE A roads.
My daughter's fiance, who got this car together, used to have a similar car as a runabout (his real car being a heavily tweaked Skyline GTR) so knew the model was handy. I am impressed, and not a little jealous.
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You'll struggle to get a decent Golf VR6 for next to nothing. Leggy abused examples abound but nice sub-100k original examples are still usually above 2k.
Corrado's have come down a lot in price but again, there are so few nice ones left, they command big premiums. The 2.9 VR6 can't do the same miles as the 2.8 without a rebuild either. G60's are very cheap now.
I would also say the Volvo S60 is quite quirky - it is a unique platform which doesn't share any bits with any other manufacturer, 5-cylinder engines and a very focused design which doesn't pay much heed to what others were doing at the time.
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If you can pick up a GTA for £4k, then it'll be a shed, or have starship mileage I think. (Or at least, as the owner of a 156 GTA, I hope so!)
Not sure they fit into this thread yet, although they are undoubtedly a fantastic car, and a bargain for what they are.
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Any 10yr old survivors of the 'Three of a Wunderkind' as group-tested by Autocar in late 90s.....Merc E class 2.8 BMW 5 series 2.8 Audi A6 2.8.
All 3 virtually identical in size and performance - but possibly not reliability/durability.
Would be interesting to repeat test on 10yr old examples with 100,000plus on the clock.
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Would be interesting to repeat test on 10yr old examples with 100 000plus on the clock.
Now that would be very interesting together with service histories (with bills) and independent engineers examination of those same cars, and chuck in a Lexus for good measure.
I cringe thinking of Fifth gear doing the test, and please don't let JC get anywhere near this, they'd reduce it to idiocy as usual.
Edited by gordonbennet on 11/02/2009 at 15:47
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I recently purchased a mk3 Golf GTI @ £700 plus 6 months tax, am very impressed with it so far, it has enough low down torque to fly up steep hills even with passengers ;)
However there's always the 16v if you like top-end performance & constant revs!
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early Jag S Type 4.0 V8.... '99' T onwards....280 bhp with RWD
should imagine the supercharged 'R' version with high mileage and a tad uncared for, would be a reasonable price as well...not much would get near that with 395 bhp.. absolute rocket ship
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early Jag S Type 4.0 V8.... '99' T onwards....280 bhp with RWD should imagine the supercharged 'R' version with high mileage and a tad uncared for would be a reasonable price as well...not much would get near that with 395 bhp.. absolute rocket ship
Second that opinion!
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406 v6 Coupe? 210 bhp - lovely engine and very good looking!
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If you can pick up a GTA for £4k, then it'll be a shed, or have starship mileage I think. (Or at least, as the owner of a 156 GTA, I hope so!)
Yes you are right, this I believe is the price for an old example in the worst possible condition thats been to the moon and back so 4K not realistic. Sorry if I got anyones hopes up.
Fantastic car though.
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early Jag S Type 4.0 V8.... '99' T onwards....280 bhp with RWD should imagine the supercharged 'R' version with high mileage and a tad uncared for would be a reasonable price as well...not much would get near that with 395 bhp.. absolute rocket ship
On the Jag theme, there's also the XJR.
A beautiful, well cared for 380 bhp ballistic missile for probably £2800 with a bit of haggling.
tinyurl.com/d2x7n7
I would sell the Volvo tomorrow for this if I could afford 18 mpg.
Cheers
DP
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On the Jag theme there's also the XJR.
a mate's got a later one, about an 03 plate ...absolutely astonishing performance, no doubt helped by the fact it's aluminium..you would never imagine a large saloon with all the toys in it, could be so quick off the mark...amazing bit of kit
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Well ive just taken delivery of a 55 plate Vauxhall Monaro. I cant stop smileing what a car :)
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What did you pay for that Monaro, mrmender? I assume it must have been an absolute bargain in the current climate.
I'd happily open this thread up to more expensive suggestions, not just bangernomics performance cars. So long as the 'bang per buck' ratio is favourable!
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What did you pay for that Monaro mrmender? I assume it must have been an
That would be telling just to say the sound of s large V8 is good enough!
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Well done mm. Green with envy.
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