The Cheapest Legendary Performance Cars You Can Buy Today

We're often asked the question: 'how can I get a cheap performance car with iconic heritage'? The answer is not a straightforward one, so here are the cheapest ways to secure yourself a quick car from a legendary brand
The Cheapest Legendary Performance Cars You Can Buy Today

BMW: E36 M3

The Cheapest Legendary Performance Cars You Can Buy Today

The oft-overlooked BMW E36 M3, hit the bottom of its depreciation curve a few years ago, and although prices have risen by around 50 per cent, it’s still the a great entry point into M car ownership. You can find high-mileage examples for under £6000, but we would recommend spending a couple thousand more to find a clean example; you don’t want to end up buying a lemon like Alex…

The 3.2-litre S50B32 straight-six engine fitted to post-September 1995 M3 coupes is, as Alex describes it, “a heartless destroyer of speed limits”. With an impressive (for the time) 316bhp, the E36 is good for a 0-60mph time of around 5.4 seconds, and will go on to a top speed of 170mph (sans limiter). With clean examples hitting the £10,000+ point, now is the time to buy!

Alternatively, around £8500 also puts you in E46 M3 territory, so that’s a car well worth considering too.

2. Ferrari: Mondial and 348

The Cheapest Legendary Performance Cars You Can Buy Today

Released in 1980, the Ferrari Mondial was a major disappointment. With a 3.0-litre 205bhp V8, a 0-60mph time of 8.2 seconds and a top speed of just 140mph, the Mondial was slaughtered by the automotive press, with Clarkson describing the car as a dog’s dinner.

As a result, prices are relatively low for a mid-engined car from Maranello - £30,000 should bag you a clean Quattrovalvole version. In fact, you can even purchase the exact same car as reviewed by Jezza!

The Cheapest Legendary Performance Cars You Can Buy Today

But what if you want a more usable thoroughbred? Well, we’d go for a 348. Built from 1989 to 1995, the 348 was by no means perfect, with owners complaining of stiff gearboxes, vague steering and a number of reliability problems. But if you put those niggles aside, it’s still a mid-engined, two-seat, V8 Ferrari.

Unfortunately, these cars have already started to appreciate, so a reasonable spec 348 GTB will cost you north of £40,000. But on the plus side, you’re almost guaranteed to make a profit when it comes time to sell.

Maserati: Biturbo

The Cheapest Legendary Performance Cars You Can Buy Today

The infamous Biturbo was designed as a usable entry-level Maserati. Earlier cars like the Bora and the Merak were truly stunning machines, but they simply didn’t produce the revenue needed to keep the Italian company afloat. This forced CEO Alejandro de Tomaso to build a scalable Italian supercar for the “common” man. What resulted was arguably the worst car in the history of Maserati.

Fans of the Biturbo like to remind us that it was the first production road car to use a twin-turbocharger setup, but that didn’t mean it was powerful. The 2.5-litre twin-turbo V6 produced only 192bhp and 220lb ft of torque, giving the Biturbo a 0-60mph time of 6.5 seconds and a top speed of 135mph; acceptable for a hot-hatch, embarrassing for GT car. Handling was equally disappointing, with copious amounts of body roll and laughably bad brakes. And have we mentioned that it’s butt ugly?

As a result, these cars didn’t sell well, meaning that clean examples are now available for under £7000.

Audi: RS6 C5

The Cheapest Legendary Performance Cars You Can Buy Today

Somewhat surprisingly, the iconic Audi RS6 C5 is now one of the cheapest ways into RS ownership. With a 4.2-litre, 450bhp, twin-turbocharged V8, the RS6 absolutely decimated the competition when it was released back in 2002, with the Avant claiming the title of ‘world’s fastest estate car’.

With a 0-60mph time of 4.4 seconds and a top speed of 155mph (over 180mph delimited) the RS6 sported serious supercar-rivalling performance. So what’s the catch? Well, with any car this advanced, problems are going to be commonplace. Owners have reported issues such as cracked manifolds, blown mass air flow sensors, worn bushes and leaky intercoolers. Servicing costs are also painfully high. You can pick up cars for under £7000, but we’d invest another £7k to secure a cleaner example. If you want the limited-run Plus, expect to pay around £20,000.

Mercedes: C36 AMG

The Cheapest Legendary Performance Cars You Can Buy Today

The C36 AMG W202 was the first AMG model to be sold through Mercedes’ official dealership network and was a car designed to take on the dominant E36 M3. The sonorous inline-six found in the C280 was retained, but the AMG crew bumped the displacement up to 3.6 litres. Aggressive camshafts, an increase in compression and a performance exhaust were also added to give the car 276bhp and 284lb ft of torque. Granted, the 0-60mph time of 6.7 seconds and top speed of 155mph was still some way off the M3, but it wasn’t a bad start for the iconic tuner.

Firmer suspension with a 25mm drop gave the car impressive handling, and the S600 vented disc brakes guaranteed fade free braking performance. Surprisingly, for such a historically significant vehicle, high-milage examples can be had for under £5000. And if you double your budget, you can get a mint-condition C36 for just under £10,000. What a steal!

Bentley: Turbo R

The Cheapest Legendary Performance Cars You Can Buy Today

The Bentley Turbo R is what we like to call a ‘proper’ Bentley. Based on the Mulsanne Turbo, the Turbo R made use of the legendary 6.75-litre pushrod V8, with a single Garrett turbocharger thrown on for some extra oomph. Exact power figures were never released, with Bentley describing the shove as “adequate”, but it was estimated that the early cars put out around 300bhp and 480lb ft of torque.

The Turbo R was a huge vehicle (5.3 metres in length) and featured an incredibly luxurious interior. As a result, the kerb weight of 2404kg made it a bit wayward in the corners. Hefty swaybars, stiffer springs and dampers and a new Panhard bar were fitted to help improve composure. But let’s face it, a car the size of a cruise liner will never be dynamically refined.

If you want one, expect to pay around £10,000 for a clean example and £6000 for a shed.

Jaguar: XJR

The Cheapest Legendary Performance Cars You Can Buy Today

If you want a luxo-barge, but think the Turbo R is a bit too ostentatious, take a look at an early Jaguar XJR. Known as the X308, the menacing Jag was sold from 1998 through to 2003. Packing a 4.0-litre, 370bhp, supercharged V8 under its long and low bonnet, the XJR could achieve 0-60mph in 5.1 seconds and would go on to an electronically-limited top speed of 155mph.

There are plenty of cars available for under £6000, but these Jags did suffer from reliability issues, so it’s vital to carry out some specific checks before you buy.

The main issue was the Nikasil cylinder bore liners, well known to degrade over time. So it’s important to perform a compression test before money swaps hands. The timing-chain slippers were also notoriously weak, so make sure these have been replaced.

Porsche: 924

The Cheapest Legendary Performance Cars You Can Buy Today

The 924 is best known for being the Porsche with the ‘Volkswagen van engine’, which is a shame, because the 924 is a damn good car. Originally designed as a Volkswagen sports car, Porsche purchased the design due to the fact that it made an ideal replacement for the lacklustre 914.

With a 2.0-litre 110bhp four-cylinder it’s safe to say that the 924 was slower than it looked. In fact, with a 0-60mph time of 9.2 seconds and a top speed of 124mph it was one of the slowest performance cars of the day. But as we all know, straight-line speed isn’t everything. The car featured a truly brilliant chassis and class-leading reliability.

The Cheapest Legendary Performance Cars You Can Buy Today

These cars are easy to work on, they’re cheap to run and they’re cheap to buy. £5,000 will secure you a nice example, and £15,000 will get you a mint-condition machine. And because the 924 has hit the bottom of the depreciation curve, they’re only going to go up in value!

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Comments

Anonymous

No Alfa Romeo GT 3.2v6 busso with the LSD?

04/14/2016 - 12:13 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

UKDM BMWs: Car Throttle adores them, especially the M range

04/14/2016 - 12:13 |
0 | 0
essequattro

I literally laughed out loud at the Mondial and the Biturbo

04/14/2016 - 12:21 |
0 | 2

Why did you laugh about the Mondial or Biturbo?

06/28/2016 - 00:06 |
0 | 0
Roads-Watson

I feel like nobody wants to be THAT guy but I’m going to be him. A car that really should have been on this list which features some ruddy awful choices (£30,000 Ferrari that nobody loved) So here. For between £7,000 and £16,000 you could get this. The R32 GT-R. Obviously cemented as Legendary so belongs on this list. Is very reasonably priced and for your money you get a 2.6L, Twin-Turbo pushing out minimum 276bhp to all four wheels. Keeping mind that these cars are heavily modified in the community you’re going to be looking at examples with much more power than that. 0-60 in 5.6 seconds, again likely to be faster with a modified example and a top speed of 156mph. And they left that off this list. Ha!

04/14/2016 - 12:25 |
4 | 0
Legendary

So you pay a premium for rust in England? Count me out.

04/14/2016 - 12:30 |
2 | 0
Malaysian Boyracer

Ferrari Mondial and 348….good investments…maybe….but good cars….absolutely not

04/14/2016 - 12:33 |
2 | 2

Both great cars - can’t really compare them to cars that came out today.

06/28/2016 - 00:05 |
0 | 2
Anonymous

This needs to stop. I’m so over these articles… cheap to run?
Seriously? If you buy a $50k, $60k, $70k etc car… even if you buy it for five grand, it’s still high end car prices. Do you know how much a new radiator hose is for that Masarati? Or a Bentley?

Do you know how much replacing the bushings that are going to need doing on ANY of those… which WILL need doing on a low end of the market one.

I mean… you’ve SEEN what happens even if you pick up a low end market E36 M3. If you pay under 15k for an E46 you will be spending the same again to get it up to scratch.

Seriously… this kind of nonsense article needs to stop - it’s borderline irresponsible to imply to someone any of these are cheap to buy and run.

04/14/2016 - 12:36 |
264 | 12
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

I own a Jaguar XJR model called the Daimler Super V8. Everything like the XJR but with long wheel base. Everything is absolutely perfect! Bought it for €12.000 from the second owner and 119.000km’s on it. Why spending €12.000 when there are many more available for €5000? Because I pay attention to important details that can make this absolute pleasure of a car into a nightmare that eats €50 bills. No need to stop posts like this, as long as you know what you’re doing and find out as much as you can about the car, no need to worry. The most important thing is to bring it to a specialist before buying the car. This cost me €100 once for petrol and the mechanic, but saved me a potential €5000 on costs if I bought it straight from the seller.

04/14/2016 - 17:19 |
20 | 0
Igor Konuhov

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

While you’re completely right, I must say it varies a lot. If we’re talking Ferrari or a Bentley - surely the costs are stratospherical, but an m3, it’s very much tolerable. More so, we’re talking a car that is not your daily, so the running costs will go down considerably, since you won’t be needing new brakes for example, in quite a while.

04/14/2016 - 17:51 |
10 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

But with a bumper to bumper warranty…

04/14/2016 - 19:12 |
18 | 0
Brandon Herrera

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Everything in life is relative. If you buy a new one, you gotta pay. An older one, yup you gotta pay to. But luckily, there are loop holes.

04/15/2016 - 04:12 |
0 | 0
Mark May

They should have replaced the 924 with the turbo or the 924s (which had a real Porsche built motor from the 944)… Seeing as both those models cost the same or less than the prices mentioned… Hell just take out the 924 and use the 944 turbo, my buddy just picked one up for 8 grand (canadian) and its pushing 400 horsepower.

04/14/2016 - 13:06 |
0 | 0

Those prices are very unrealistic too. I picked up my 924s for 3 grand and my 944 for 1500$. Both in pretty decent condition. For 15,000 pounds you could get a absolutely mint 944 turbo.

04/14/2016 - 13:12 |
0 | 0
POKLU

Mercedes-Benz CL600 W215
5,8l 367 HP V 12 Engine 800 Nm
0-60 mph around 5 seconds
Top speed limited to 250 kmph (i don’t know what it is in mph)
And LOTS of luxurious stuff - everything leather, wood and electric, massage seats, sat nav, even an Adaptive Cruise Control… this car is from 2000-2005.
Price: less than 10.000 euro.

04/14/2016 - 13:10 |
0 | 0
TipsyTimothy

no ek9?

04/14/2016 - 13:16 |
0 | 0