Looking for a used performance car icon? Try these – car pictures of the week
Does price, a lack of personality and irritating mandated nannying in new cars put you off? Look to the stars of the past…
In spite of their differences, they all share one thing: an evo five-star rating, cementing their status as among the best of their kind. That’s why we gathered a Mk2 Ford Focus RS500 from 2010, a McLaren 675LT from 2016, a Ferrari Roma and Toyota GR86 from the mid-2020s, a Jaguar XE SV Project 8 from the late 2010s and a Caterham 420 Cup to celebrate some of evo's favourite cars from its illustrious past. You can read more about our choices in issue 344 of evo, available here.
They might look like a random hat full of cars picked from the lineup at an evo track day. But these are deliberate choices, each representing a handful of categories listed in evo's The Knowledge rankings.
There are a number of great reasons to be looking to the used market at the moment. New cars feel more expensive than ever right now and many lack the kind of personality we crave in our discretionary buys. Of course, all new cars also come with irritating assistance nannies that need to be switched off (a task that varies in difficulty from car to car) every time you start it.
So while a Ford Focus RS500 might not have the track performance of a new Audi RS3, it’s more affordable (even at £50,000-plus), is unlikely to depreciate, has a wonderful, freer-sounding five-cylinder engine and features no such nannies. A new Ferrari 296 Speciale will likely set you back over £400,000 once customisation is complete, and that’s for a car with no production limit. Yet the McLaren 675LT, arguably McLaren’s best car, of which fewer than 1000 were made across coupe and Spider models, can be had for less than £250,000, in less desirable specs with fewer options.
As for the Jag, well, few enthusiasts need reminding of the hybridised, 2.3-ton-plus direction most new fast saloons and estates are currently going in. Never mind the skunkworks elements of its composition, just being under 1900kg with nothing but a V8 to power it makes the XE Project 8 one of the best of an effectively dead breed.
All the cars featured are fantastic buys, which we explore in more detail in evo issue 344’s Five-Star icons feature, in addition to suggesting some alternatives.
