Rarely do the worlds of PH and What Car? meet, but right now is one such joyous time, as our sister title has just revealed the winners of its
Used Car of the Year Awards
I won't bore you with the family hatchbacks and superminis that dot the less performance-orientated categories (though we'll chuck in an honourable mention for the Seat Leon, which takes the Used Car of the Year award partly because it's cracking value and jolly good fun to drive).
However, up at the fruitier end of the spectrum, there are some interesting winners - most notably of all, the first-gen Audi R8, which takes the What Car? Used Sports Car of the Year award.
Now, as a seasoned PHer, you'll know the first-gen R8 as a bit of a controversial car (first to shout 'it's just a big TT' gets a medal for Most Obvious Comment). But for the most part, R8 owners love their cars, and so does What Car?, with the R8 beating the W212 Mercedes E63 AMG and Porsche's 987 Cayman to the award.
Is it really a supercar? Discuss. It looks like one, and feels like one, but for some it won't be quite fast enough. Whichever way you swing, a first-gen R8 is bloody good fun to drive. The V10 is probably the more spine-tingling of the two cars, but a V8 manual is still a true delight, with a rev-happy engine, communicative steering, exceptional high-speed stability and, of course, grip and traction to spare.
And we haven't even talked price yet. Despite everything it has going for it, you can now pick up an
early R8 V8
with decent mileage and history for under £40,000 - this one is just £37,000. And while I use the word 'just' cautiously there, I can't help but feel that R8s are getting close to their minimum values, which I suspect they'll bump along at for a few years before taking off again once numbers thin out a little. All the more reason to get in now before that happens.
Can't stretch to the R8? Fear not, because at the other end of the scale sits the Used Hot Hatch of the Year award, in which all three nominees can now be had for less than £10,000.
You wouldn't sniff at either of the runners-up for the prices they tend to go for - the FN2 Honda Civic Type R starts from around £4,500 for a good'un, while a solid Mk5 Golf GTI will set you back a scratch more.
But the eventual winner of the award is newer, smaller and pricier than both of those cars. "It had better be good, then," I hear you say. Fortunately, it is: it's the Ford Fiesta ST which, as you'll know, we're big fans of here on PH.
The unexpected thing about a used Fiesta ST, mind you, is that it isn't quite the billy bargain you'd expect. Strong demand has kept prices reasonably buoyant, meaning
a year-old example
will still set you back at least £13,000, while even the earliest STs are only just dipping below
the £10,000 mark
. When you consider the ST was listed at £17,000-ish new, with hefty discounts meaning many were sold for rather less, that means it hasn't actually lost a huge proportion of its value; in other words, the fastest Fiesta isn't quite the depreciation-happy bargain most used Fords end up being.
Then again, if you're going to shell out ten large or more on a small hot hatch, you'll probably want it to hold on to as much of that as it can. Either way, it doesn't matter: the ST is such a hoot that it doesn't have to be super-cheap to be easy to recommend used. It's that rare thing nowadays: a proper little hooligan of a car that eschews modern conventions (must be automatic, must be five-doors, because that's what people want) in favour of raw driving thrills. It's endowed with an engine that manages to be both a low-end slugger and a rev-happy screamer and a suspension setup that is, I'll grant you, more than a touch on the firm side, but gives it a sense of darting eagerness that few, if any, can match.
So there you have it - the PH-iest pair from the What Car? Used Car Awards. But if you fancy finding out what else has won, you can do so on the spangly dedicated microsite - I'm not sure what's 'micro' about it, but there we go - right here.