Best new car at any given price point?

[white_goodman]

I've given up on new cars at the moment because most stuff seems about £10000 too expensive. The last new car that I bought was an old model Polo 1.4 diesel for £12000. When the time came to change, I would have loved to have upgraded to a mid-spec Golf but the prices had shot up so much that I wouldn't have even been able to afford a better Polo (my father bought a new-model Polo 1.2 diesel earlier this year for £14000)! Hence I went for a 7 year old Impreza instead!

I remember when you could get a decent Impreza/hot hatch/sports car/coupe for £20k. Now most of the hot hatches and cheaper coupes (RCZ/Scirocco) seem to be north of £20k. £30k was M3/entry level Porsche money and so on and £40k would get you something really special. There seems to be a dearth of really interesting driver's cars below £40k at the moment.

So, hypothetical question, you're going to buy a brand new car, it will be your only car, so needs to meet your practical as well as driving pleasure requirements. What would you buy for £10k/£20k/£30k/£40k/£50k? Here are some suggestions.

£10k: Fiat Panda 100HP (discounted - although I believe that this model has been discontinued), so it would have to be a Fiat 500 Twinair

£20k: A well-specced Abarth 500 Essesse or maybe a Skoda Fabia vRS if more practicality was required

£30k: Subaru WRX STI?

£40k: Audi RS3/BMW 1M Coupe

£50k: Lotus Evora or Range Rover Sport

What would you buy at each of these price levels? It's surprisingly difficult to decide, especially at the £20k-£30k level. As much as I love the Abarth 500, it's hard to justify spending double the money over a Twinair. So what would you buy? Remember it has to be brand new.

[Jayho]

Skoda Fabia VRS sounds about right for my needs.

But I do like the Volvo C30's, so either one of those would do me fine.

[va1o]

For £10k probably an Ibiza Copa SE. Lots of kit for the money. For £30k either a 520d, Jag XF or RR Evoque. Rest I'm not really sure. The £20k one is hardest, virtually nothing for that strikes me as offering decent value, seems to be about the going rate for a mid-range Golf these days.

[swamp]

BMW 520d SE Touring £32K.

[PumpkinSteve]

Mazda were doing the MX5 VAT free for around £13K and Skoda were doing the Fabia VRS for about the same price two months ago so I'd pick either of those. Bargain.

[jonnydm]

£10k increments is a bit much. RS Clio is advertised as the most fun pound for pound iirc. I think that its around £16k.

[white_goodman]

jonnydm said:

£10k increments is a bit much. RS Clio is advertised as the most fun pound for pound iirc. I think that its around £16k.

Correct. They probably do offer the best performance per pound but I just don't like Renaults. Never have. The ones that I have driven have never felt "right" and I really don't trust them in terms of reliability. Maybe I'm wrong. I like the styling of some of them: old Megane, old Laguna, new Megane Coupe and I might even like a Clio V6 or Megane 250 if I tried one. But for about £25k I would probably choose something else like a Golf GTI/Scirocco or a Peugeot RCZ.

[kambites]

At 20k, I'd say the answer has to be MX5.

So I'd go:

10k - no idea
20k - MX5
30k - Elise
40k - Cayman
50k - Evora

[George H]

£10k - Fiat 500
£20k - Polo GTI
£30k - Golf R
£40k - RS3
£50k - Cayman

[Jazoli]

George H said:

£20k - Polo GTI

How feckin much?

Not good value to me, although I've not spend more than £2k of my own money on any car.

[George H]

Jazoli said:

How feckin much?

Not good value to me, although I've not spend more than £2k of my own money on any car.

Well I think they start at £18,300ish for the 3 door, but by the time you spec them up it soon shoots up.

I don't think it's that bad value when you bear in mind the OP said his dad paid £14k for a 1.2 diesel Polo.