10 Used Sports Saloons For Under £10,000

Providing you don’t have a large dog, a sports saloon is easy to view as the whole package when it comes to cars. What’s not to like about blending the practicality of a family four-door with sports car pace, especially as there’s usually a bit of extra style and luxury thrown in for these top models too?

Because of that all-round talent – and the fact that the market for new saloons is shrinking like a deflated balloon – what you can buy new in this segment is limited to a few rather expensive models like the BMW M3, Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio and Mercedes-AMG C63. Even their sporty but not quite full-fat equivalents like the M340i, Giulia Veloce and C43 are on the pricey side.

Not that long ago, though, there was far more variety in the rapid saloon market, meaning you’ve plenty of choice if you’re willing to go used. Let’s say you’ve got a nice, round £10,000 budget to play with – here are our 10 favourite second-hand sports saloons.

Alfa Romeo 156 GTA

The Sportwagon version of this car made our countdown of the best used fast estates, and the same warnings apply to the saloon. It’s very much a head versus heart question: on the one hand, you’ll be getting perhaps the greatest V6 engine ever in 3.2-litre, 247bhp form, a gorgeous exterior and an equally pretty cabin.

On the other hand, you’ll have to deal with second-hand Alfa reliability and a front-wheel drive chassis that couldn’t really handle the amount of power being thrown at it. We suspect those worries might dissipate the first time you explore the upper reaches of the Busso’s rev range, though. 0-62mph took 6.3 seconds, and it topped out at 155mph.

Audi S4 B7

Yes, you can get the sensational B7 RS4 for under £10k, but it’ll be a risky endeavour at that price. Far better, we reckon, to settle for its baby sibling, the Audi S4, which really wasn’t that babyish at all. It packed the same sonorous 4.2-litre V8, and while it was making 339bhp here rather than the RS4’s 414bhp, you’d still hit 62mph in 5.8 seconds and 155mph.

It’s not going to be as sharp to drive as the RS4, but it’ll still cover ground very quickly while you’re nestled in an interior that doesn’t feel all that dated 20 years later. Best of all, though, was that it looked nigh-on identical to a 2.0-litre diesel A4 – great for surprising bystanders with a burst of V8 rumble.

BMW 335i E90

Again, this budget just about covers a full-fat BMW M3 – if you’re prepared to settle for a high-mileage and likely problematic E36. The sensible money, we think, is on a 335i from two generations later. You’re getting 306bhp from a 3.0-litre twin-turbo (later single twin-scroll turbo) inline-six, all going to the rear wheels, just as it should in a BMW saloon. 5.8 seconds to 62mph and a regulated 155mph top end are hardly to be sniffed at.

To our eyes, the E90 generation is just getting more handsome by the day, and again, the interior’s really not a bad place to sit given this car’s now almost 20 years old. Find an (admittedly rare) manual and you’re laughing.

Jaguar XFR

‘Grace, space, pace’ was the now massively clichéd strapline with which Jaguar advertised its cars back in the ’60s, but those boxes are ticked pretty much perfectly by the original XFR. The grace came courtesy of a still-pretty Ian Callum-penned body, the space from its ample, cushty interior.

And pace? Yep, a 5.0-litre, 503bhp supercharged V8 will handle that, to the tune of 62mph in 4.7 seconds and a limited 155mph top speed (a limiter that Jeremy Clarkson proved only really existed in the minds of Jag’s marketing department when he tested the XFR on Top Gear). Just try not to remember the oft-forgotten fourth part of that rhyme: ‘repair bills that will make you want to tear off your own face’.

Mazda 6 MPS

Mazda is very much not the first name you think of when it comes to sports saloons, but it doesn’t mean it’s not had a very appealing crack at the genre. For this hotted-up version of the handsome first-gen 6, a 2.3-litre, 256bhp turbocharged four-pot was paired with a six-speed manual and four-wheel drive for a sort of bigger, more grown-up take on the Evo/Impreza formula.

More point-and-squirt and Audi-ish than delicate and BMW-ish in its character, it was still a handily quick thing: 6.6 seconds to 62mph and a 150mph top speed. Rare, too: supposedly, there are only 194 currently registered on British roads, and there was only ever a smidge over 1000 at its peak. A real cult classic already. Just watch out for a surprisingly brutal thirst – the MPS was better at MPH than MPG.

Mercedes-Benz C43 AMG W202

No, not the current C43, which uses an amped-up four-cylinder. The first car to carry that name was a lot more intriguing. One of the final AMG models before it became a wholesale part of Mercedes, the original C43 – based on the first-gen, W202 C-Class – hailed from an era when AMG’s names actually had some relevance to engine size.

In this case, that meant a naturally aspirated 4.3-litre V8, sending 302bhp to the back wheels of this understated compact exec. You did have to deal with a very ’90s-spec five-speed auto (albeit tweaked by AMG), but you’d still be rewarded by 62mph in 5.7 seconds and 155mph. Plus, who doesn’t love a set of ’90s AMG Monoblocks?

Image: Calreyn88, CC BY-SA 4.0

MG ZT 260

Ever the ambitious underdog, MG Rover, in its dying days, decided that the MG ZT – the sportified version of the wafty Rover 75 – needed a V8. This was found in the form of the Ford Mustang’s 4.6-litre, 256bhp lump, and installing it involved the small undertaking of totally re-engineering the front-wheel drive ZT to be rear-drive.

With 0-62mph taking 6.6 seconds and a familiar 155mph top end, it’s more muscular cruiser than corner carver, but there’s an undeniably strange appeal to rumbling along with a big American V8 under the bonnet, all while surrounded by an interior taken straight from an English country cottage. The best British-American mashup this side of one of those really nice burgers you get at a fancy pub.

Saab 9-3 Turbo X

Another entry to the rapid-if-not-that-involving club alongside the Mazda and the Audi, the 9-3 Turbo X is nonetheless an appealingly left-field choice. Launched in 2008 to mark 30 years of turbo’d Saabs, it packed a 2.8-litre turbocharged V6 making 276bhp, and sent that to all four wheels. It also packed a rear e-diff that could juggle torque across the back axle.

Hitting 155mph and 62mph in 5.7 seconds, just 500 Turbo Xs were brought to the UK in 2008, all in black, only adding to their understated, sleeper appeal. Some were estates, too, so if you want the four-door version, you’ll have to be patient – although as we write this, there’s an incredibly tidy example for sale for a fiver under budget.

Volkswagen Passat R36

The Golf R32 may have stolen all the headlines, but VW’s early R-badge experiments went further than that. Take the R36 Passat. That name referred to its 3.6-litre VR6 motor, which developed a healthy 296bhp, good for 62mph in 5.6 seconds and – you guessed it – a 155mph top speed.

Available solely with four-wheel drive and a six-speed DSG auto ’box, it would comfortably keep pace with more expensive, powerful stuff like the Audi S4. What’s more, the B6 generation Passat is another car that’s ageing impeccably inside and out. The R36 was a surprising hit in Japan, which is where a lot of second-hand examples come from these days.

Volvo S60 R

We return to Sweden for the last entry, to visit the sensible folk at Volvo. Not that they didn’t have a wild streak in the 2000s, because they decided to stuff a turbocharged 296bhp inline-five into the sensible-shoes S60 and top it off with a tricksy power-shuffling Haldex four-wheel drive system.

A considerably rarer prospect than its longroof counterpart, the V70 R, the S60 R would crack 62mph in 5.7 seconds (and if you’ve read the rest of this list, you can probably guess its top speed). Find one in the holy grail spec of Flash Green over Atacama leather, and you’ve got a true visual event too, especially with the utterly bizarre spaceball manual shifter. We’ll never see a car like this from Volvo again.