Happy Christmas! And behold Shed of the Year

Another year, another 50 bargain bucket gems - which drew the most eyeballs?

By Tony Middlehurst / Thursday, 25 December 2025 / Loading comments

Once again we come staggering to the end of another year of sub-£2,000 MOT'd bangers, and the point at which we can see which of the fifty or so contenders have generated the highest number of views by you lot. After examining this year's list, Shed has been wondering what Mrs Shed might have been putting into the Christmas pud, because the selection has put him strongly in mind of last year's SOTY ten best. That class of ‘24 consisted of an R53 Mini Cooper S, closely followed by a Jaguar XF V6 Luxury, an Alfa Brera, VW Phaeton V6, Jaguar XJ Sport, Ford Mondeo 2.5 T, Volvo XC60, Alfa GT, Golf GTI and Lexus IS 250. This year's list doesn't contain any Volvos or Alfa Romeos but, just like Mrs Shed's scowl, some things never change - as you're about to find out.

Shed was going to put the 2025 ten best in a random order and then let you have a guess in the forum as to the correct rundown, but the idea was vetoed by PH Management on the grounds of them probably not being sober enough to remember to give you the answers. So instead, let's get straight into it with 2025's tenth most viewed Shed of 2025, an elegant X350 Jag XJ SE that popped up in May. Resplendent in sky blue with an ivory cabin, this XJ wore its 167,000 miles with aristocratic insouciance. The MOT that had been carried out just before it went on sale produced no advisories, and the car was sold before the SOTW forum had had a chance to get going. Still, that didn't stop you expressing your views, which as usual whenever an old Jag crops up on here showed just how thin the line can be between love and hate. 'Epic shed, definitely one for the SOTW top ten,' said Psycosis, presciently. 'Reform voter?' said username-checksout, predictably.

Few would have predicted the car that came in at number nine, a 2013 Dacia Duster 1.5 dCi with all-wheel drive, one owner, ten stamps in the service book and an MOT to next June. It also had 160,000 miles under its belt and a fair few advisories on that MOT. Some posters were surprised that Dusters had come down to £2k, but others weren't. ‘I don't have enough self-loathing, nor do I hate my neighbours enough, to make them endure being woken up each morning by something that sounds like a cement mixer filled with broken spanners’, said The Driving God. That was one of the nicer negative comments. Not everyone was a hater though. 'A decent enough winter hack’, said Greenarrow. 'I love mine’, Muchacho chimed in. Covering all the bases and arguably hitting the nail on the head at the same time, Rallycross said 'all I can say is I have nothing to say... these are actually tough old things if you need a cheap runner." Whatever, it was the first Dacia to drop into the SOTW net, so kudos to it for that.

Number eight was this £2,000 Peugeot RCZ GT with 200hp, a near-affordable annual tax liability of £255 and, by the looks of the forum, a fair bit of emotional baggage in the 760-litre boot. Yme402 got things off to a cheery start with ‘foul looking Audi knock-off’. Mooseracer sprang to its defence with 'I'd rather (say) handsome TT alternative', while confessing that he wasn't brave enough to buy it. The MOT tester's only complaint was about some headlamp gunk, but given that the EML light was blinking forebodingly when the car was on sale in April the next exam in February might tell a different story.

As noted earlier, last year's SOTY list included a hot-ish Mondeo. This year's sole Ford representative at number seven in our hit parade was another one of those, a 2007 ST to be precise in classic Ford Performance Blue with nice multi-spoke alloys, half-leather sports seats, an unconcerning MOT and a well cared-for air about it. Unforgivably in the eyes of some PHers it sucked on the diesel pump. Cerb4.5lee weighed in with the story of his mate running what he called his STD, but the upside of that was its hefty 295lb ft of torque at 1,800rpm, a stat suggesting easy and cheap performance. 'Good motorway muncher, still looking pretty modern in my eyes’, mused 757. 'One of the most attractive "normal" 4-door cars ever made,' gushed Blue Al, not noticing that our Shed was a 5-door, although that was an easy mistake to make as Ford's stylists had managed to make the two models look almost identical. More than one poster mentioned phrases that strike fear into many hearts, viz 'Dual Mass Flywheel' and 'blocked EGR', but Rumblestripe allayed those fears by reminding us of the 'very good cupholders’.

Sitting at six was this 180,000-mile E92 BMW 330d coupe at £1,995. At the time of writing in April its MOT test certificate from October 24 had shown no advisories. It's had another test since Shed wrote about it, in October '25, by which point the mileage had gone up to 188,000. That test revealed some non-serious corrosion to the rear subframe and a non-excessive oil leak. Left to their own devices, non-serious and non-excessive faults will generally become serious and excessive. Until they do, though, the new owner is presumably continuing to enjoy the 330d's mighty torque of 369lb ft and its six-second 0-62mph time. Beardy PH types were scratching their teeth at the sight of the car's incorrect E46 MV2 wheels, while others like AndySheff were being put off by the less-than-pristine bumpers front and rear and the lack of interior pics. Some posters cleverly spotted Shed's deliberate mistake about VANOS and variable cam timing, thus qualifying themselves for free entry into the following week's forum.

Oooh look, we're into the top five. At the bottom of that group we had something from a manufacturer who used to appear like clockwork in SOTW until the used examples of their work became polarised into two categories, namely unaffordable classics and wrecks. Yes, it's a Subaru, and specifically a 145,000-mile Outback 3.0R. It had the notoriously dim auto gearbox and the notoriously ridiculous £710 annual tax, but who cared about any of that when there was a 245hp flat six under the lid? Well, maybe the ones who expected it to have rust under the paint. Jwwbowe kicked off the case for the prosecution with some fairly horrific wheelarch shots of his white-turning-to-brown example. There were plenty of admirers, though. 'Such good looking cars, said GianiCakes, 'what happened to you Subaru??' 'I wonder if that engine would fit a VW type 25 camper van?' inquired CDP. 'Love the Johnsons on that Geoffrey’, said Nsuru80, intriguingly.

At number four we had what the PH subhead writer described as the 'most unlikely contender ever', a Volkswagen Touareg. Not just any old Touareg though: this one was a 5.0 litre V10 diesel version from 2007, promising 313hp at 3,750rpm, a Jumbo jet-tugging 553lb ft at 2,000rpm, and 22mpg if you were lucky. ‘This has shrivelled my walnuts at just the hint of how much this could ruin my finances’, quaked Humphra. Others loved it while also hating it. ‘What a shed, epic disaster value,' laughed Turini. ‘This would ruin me, I love it,' said Thetapeworm. ‘May as well paint your undercarriage with Bovril, head to the lion enclosure at Longleat at feeding time and dangle your wedding tackle out of the car window if you enjoy risk taking that much’, said Demonix. 'A total bargain for under £2k...but too brave financially for me’, said Hamish-5b0gz. It wasn't too much for someone. It was snapped up on day one. The MOT tester had given it a clean bill of health in March this year, when it had 186,000 miles on the clock. How much further will it go? Only the gods of petrochemicals know.

Hurray, we've arrived at the podium. In bronze position, we have this 116,000-mile 2008 Skoda Octavia vRS. Octavias have always delivered on space, and in the RS you could add pace to that. Its 2.0-litre petrol lump offered 200hp and a 0-62mph time of seven seconds dead. The current MOT, which mentioned a worn front brake disc, a worn tyre and a minor exhaust leak, expires on New Year's Eve, but there's no reason to suppose it won't breeze through the next one. Gary29 pronounced himself very tempted to take a punt on it, only to find within the space of his own post that it had already been sold. 'Good looking machine and a bargain for a thrash about’, said FrankandLynn. 'Any shed that will accommodate a prone postmistress must be a good bet!' said Ferret50, lubriciously.

Our runner-up, and easily 2025's oldest SOTW, was a 1994 Mercedes E200 from the oft-trumpeted W124 series. Power wise it didn't have much, just 136hp from its normally-aspirated 2.0 petrol four, but Shed knew from his own W124 experience just how effortlessly these old Mercs hum along the high road. Apart from slight suspension and brake pipe corrosion, the 200 looked in good enough nick to go on and double its 152,000 miles without any bother at all. Readers appreciated its simplicity, the lack of cabin electronics being seen as a sweet relief from the relentless barrage of electronic messaging fired at us by modern cars. ‘I rather like that,' said Ducnick. 'Not much to go wrong there.' 86wasagoodyear nominated it as 'shed of the century." Dinkel corrected him with 'shed of last century'. ‘That's when Mercedes really stood out as a luxury brand, making beautifully designed and detailed luxury cars,' agreed Mark Blanchard. As he so often does, Psycosis summed it up. 'It won't get you anywhere in a hurry, but you drive according to the car's abilities and in turn you keep within the speed limits and get to places feeling relaxed.' Quite so.

And so we come to our grand winner, this 3.0 TDV6 diesel-powered Jaguar XF Luxury in a rare shade of dark green that came along in March. The MOT in Sept '24 at 174,000 miles had noted a rusty offside front spring. The follow-up test in October this year showed that the spring had been sorted, but a non-seriously weakened corroded rear subframe had taken its place on the advisory list. Otherwise this XF looked really good despite its mileage. 'Oh hello, that would be superb for a few years of waftage on the commute, said POIDH. 'Looks like a great car for very little money,' said Chirurgus. 'Utter, utter bargain,' said Sinisterpenguin. 'Really didn't expect these to be in Shed territory,' gasped Cryssys. 'As good a shed as you're ever likely to find.' WPA sounded a note of sensibility by pointing out that another £1k on top of its purchase price would have chopped the mileage down to under 100k, but then it wouldn't have been a Shed of the Week would it? Evercross went into a good bit of detail about the issues he'd had with his XF 3.0 D before concluding that our Shed was a low-risk purchase. Rob131 Sport went further. "This just has to be Shed of the Year,' he said, correctly.

So there we have it. In a time of extremes for Jaguar it seems only right that their cars should be topping and tailing our 2025 Shed of the Year table. Shed hopes that this fine name can be brought back up to the level he remembers when he owned a Mk 10, a car that was both terrible and wonderful at the same time. And on that note Shed, Mrs Shed, their son Potting and their daughter Garden wish you all a happy New Year.