Q-car gems for under £10k | Six of the Best
Cheap, big-engined sleepers are dead to carmakers. But very much alive and well in the classifieds...
Audi S4, 2007, 74k, £8,500
Generally speaking, shouty, OTT fast cars don’t often get the collective PH juices flowing. Much better, if the forum-based feedback is anything to go by, to speak softly and carry a big stick. Think BMW Alpina rather than BMW M. So that’s what we’re here to celebrate, albeit at a much more modest price point than anything close to new. While it can often seem like £10k doesn’t buy much in 2025, every Q car here has at least three litres and 250hp under the bonnet. So that’s something. This 74,000-mile S4 packs quite a lot more than that, the B6 generation ushering in a monster 4.2 V8 with almost 350hp - barely 20hp less than the new S5 with its clever turbo V6. The sound ought to be magnificent, the resulting speed ample - and the running costs occasionally terrifying - but for £8,500 it’s some lump of ‘bahnstomer. And nobody else will know a thing.
Toyota Blade Master G V6, 2008, 78k, £9,450
From one of the usual sleeper suspects - Audi has put big engines in unassuming saloons for yonks - to one of the more peculiar. This is a Toyota Auris with a 3.5-litre engine in it. From the factory. Or, to give this car its full title, the Toyota Blade Master G; made from 2007 until 2012, it employed 2GR-FE power - i.e. the 3.5-litre V6 used in the Lotus Evora - to make for the unlikeliest of front-wheel drive cult heroes. It’s a 280hp, five-door Toyota hatchback, and is therefore perhaps the car best qualified to be on this rundown. Because even a lot of very knowledgeable enthusiasts won’t have a clue. Less than 3,000 are believed to have been sold, all in Japan, though a few have made their way over here. This one looks immaculate for its 78k, like a proper mini Lexus. Ripe for some motorway mischief, certainly. And the engine could surely be supercharged, too…
Mercedes C350 Sport, 2013, 92k, £9,995
You’ll likely recall that we covered off fast diesels just a few weeks ago, and the response was pretty emphatic - proving (if indeed proof were needed) that there’s plenty of life left in compression ignition engines yet. The W204 C350 is a near-perfect textbook example of why: you got crushing performance from 265hp and 457lb ft of torque, a pleasantly lusty six-cylinder soundtrack and up to 47mpg measured the old-school way. Not for nothing either, but it comes wrapped in one of the last truly timeless mid-sized exec bodies - with the added benefit of wagon-shaped practicality - but doesn’t shout about it like a proper AMG would. Sure, later Merc diesels got even quicker, though you won't find them for under £10k, nor looking quite as lovely as this one does on 18s. An oil-burning Q car for the ages.
Volvo V70 T6, 2010, 80k, £10,500
Another car that’s come over from Japan, albeit a rather more familiar prospect for rapid and under the radar: it’s a big Volvo wagon. Or, specifically, an XC70 T6, meaning it packs a 3.0-litre turbocharged straight-six producing somewhere in the region of 300hp; very much at odds with the Antiques Roadshow aesthetic, and all the better for it. Oh sure, it’ll be far less economical than a D5, but we're more concerned with speed than running costs - a T6 is the ultimate Cross Country. As so often happens with Japanese imports, the condition of this Volvo is superb, with a blemish-free MOT stuck on when it arrived in the UK last year and seats that look like they’ve had 15 months of use rather than 15 years. There really is little to rival being swift and Swedish, especially when it’s been well cared for. And there are Polestar kits available.
Jaguar S-Type R, 2002, 74k, £9,995
Granted, you know it’s an R, we know it’s an R - it says it’s an R - and perhaps that denies it true Q car status. But does anyone outside the enthusiast echo chamber know that it’s supplied with a 4.2-litre V8? We’d bet not in 2025, given the S-Type is knocking on 25 years old and is hardly outrageous to look at even with the conspicuous exhaust pipes. Most people just see an old Jag - if they look at all. Except when you’re coming past, of course, on a wave made by nearly 400hp and the same again in peak twist. Clearly, you’d need to make your peace with an interior that rivals an Apple Newton for its dated appearance - but the tidiness of this low-mileage example (assuming it gets awarded with an MOT pre-delivery) ought to make up for that. You’re buying a cult classic after all, with phone to match.
Volkswagen Passat 3.2 SEL, 2008, 68k, £7,995
Finally, old faithful. VW has produced many sleepers in its time (now would’ve been the perfect week for the classifieds to supply a mega-mile W12-powered Phaeton - alas, it was not to be) but we’re particularly fond of the B6 and B7 Passat for their near-total anonymity. Which is the perfect hiding place for a VR6. It is traditionally the more powerful R36 that captures all the glory, although let’s not forget that VW also opted to shove the slightly smaller 3.2-litre version in the lower-grade SEL. Thus you got 250hp, all-wheel drive and a still very nice burble for many pounds less. Sure, it won’t turn your neck muscles to jelly with a 7.2-second-to-62mph time, but it’ll drive with umpteen times the character of a modern-day hybrid, and draw precisely no one’s attention while doing so. Stealth, the 2008 way.
For me it’s about other people’s perceptions/expectations and the amount of extra hidden performance that’s available, Perhaps the cygnet is the closest this week, but value also has to be a factor so perhaps not.
Best Q car I’ve ever seen would be the Yeti RS on a Bedford track day… all the performance was visibly deployed, on car that would normally be seen doing 20mph in a 30 zone, before local authorities had even considered fitting signage to enforce that behaviour onto the rest of us…
Where we live, it doesn’t draw glances from those whom we would not wish it to.
Last weekend a JLR engineer told me he liked the sound.
It does like a drink though.
I often think that electric cars make good Q cars nowadays as well. Most of them are very boring and ordinary to look at, plus they don't have any exhausts to give the performance game away either for example.
.If I was feeling fruity I’d got for the Jag on this list.
Where we live, it doesn’t draw glances from those whom we would not wish it to.
Last weekend a JLR engineer told me he liked the sound.
It does like a drink though.
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