5 Cheap Cars Top Gear Wrecked That Are Now Massively Sought After

The BiTurbo is something of a low point in Maserati’s history, and as a consequence only a few years ago you could pick one up for as little as £1000. The example used - and killed - for the intro to this MC12 segment from the sixth series of Top Gear probably didn’t cost the production crew much more than that.

Even if it’s probably the worst car Maserati ever made, it still seems a shame to have given it such a violent end, especially since they’re now scarce and sought after. You’ll now struggle to find one for much below £10,000.

Did you know are just 44 road licensed 3.0-litre V6 Alfa Romeo 75s left in the UK? They’re shockingly hard to find for sale, and when they do go up, you’re looking at around £5000 or more, but back in series 11 of Top Gear the production crew managed to get hold of one for under £1000.

It didn’t have a particularly pleasant time on the show, with a track day crash seeing the poor car roll onto its side. After that, it was fixed up with gaffer tape (obviously) and badly painted in ‘Skoda Green’. The silver lining is that the car was sold on in its sorry state and is still used to this day, as far as we can tell. And it’s still green…

While the 75 may have survived (ish), this Alfa wasn’t quite so lucky, ending up hacked in half and grafted onto a Saab 9000. Oh, and it was the rare Cloverleaf model, of which under 30 are registered for road use in the UK. Sad face.

We haven’t been able to find any Cloverleafs for sale in the UK, but there are a few V6s out there with (potentially ambitious) price tags approaching £10,000…

4. BMW 635csi (twice)

The first 635csi death came on the same episode Jeremy Clarkson dropped a skip on the Maserati Biturbo, as part of one of the trio’s early cheap car challenges. The ‘non-Porsche cheap coupe’ challenge culminated in the BMW taking on an endurance race on grass along with a Jaguar XJS and a Mitsubishi Starion. The BMW - and the others - were all bought for under £1500 and were in plentiful supply back then, but they’re now thin on the ground with the best examples commanding five figure prices.

635csi fatality number two came in series 14 with the TG boys’ take on BMW’s art cars. The 635 in question ended up in a ditch, but it looked to have ended up in better condition than the one used for the cheap coupe challenge a few years earlier…

5. Jaguar XJS V12

That XJS we mentioned earlier? That didn’t end up in a particularly good way either. And like the 6-series, few XJSs are now left, particularly in V12 form. You’ll need at least £5000 to buy one now, with the best ones going for over £10,000.

Despite what the YouTube video title claims, this is actually from an old Clarkson DVD rather than Top Gear. And while A610 values haven’t really shot up much from the £8250 purchase price mentioned here, getting hold of one in the UK is now incredibly difficult. Sure, the A610 has its faults, but I’m not sure this one deserved to by ploughed into a concrete barrier…

What cars do you wish would had survived the Top Gear experience? Let us know in the comments!