Recommend me a low cost retro

Oh, forgot budget. Cheapest is better but max would be around £750, probably looking to but around late january/February time.

Simple. E30.

Merc W124 would get my vote

Thanks for the suggestions guys, a few that I wouldn't have thought of. I'll be keeping an eye out on the classifieds here and on eBay while putting in some overtime.

Maestro. Before you laugh, they're a proper bargain at the moment. For as little as £300 you can get a really solid little car fully roadworthy with no problems. If you get a smaller engined A series example parts are astonishingly cheap, fuel economy is pretty good and they're not totally miserable to live with. The later S series (I think it is) engine has more power, but does drink a bit more. Best of all, you usually get back what you pay for it when you do sell it and providing you can get over the fact that most people think they're a bit frumpy it should serve you very well whatever you throw at it.  Okay, so the example I've found is a not-cheap MG version, but you could still do this to any of the other Maestros out there.  I reckon they're just waiting for their day to come because there still seems to be loads of them out there.


The Peugeot 306 is a good call too, you can't go far wrong with them. Likewise the smaller 106 and 205 both of which can be got very cheaply for a very good car if you're willing to buy a not-sporty version. For cheapest of the cheap motoring, get a diesel puglet, get the right one and it'll even take a bit of veg.


Another bargain favourite and becoming something of a staple is the K11 Micra. Cheap as anything and with engines that are built to last. Again, in your budget you'll struggle to get a bad example and they are surprisingly versatile little things in the looks department when it comes to modifying.



Last one I can think of at the moment is another from the Nissan stable, the Bluebird. They can be got for far less than they should be really worth. They've usually lasted well and as you'd expect from this era of Nissan they seem to be pretty much bulletproof mechanically. Comfortable, a bit dull, but with bags of untapped potential. Fuel economy and insurance should be pretty reasonable too.

Mk1/2 Metro's are a good punt I reckon. If you can get a clean, rust-free example, they're cracking little motors. There always seems to be a couple on Ebay which are clean with low mileage which can be paid for in peanuts. I had a Mk2 City for two years and it never missed a beat. Good on fuel, cheap to maintain/fix, insure etc etc.

Wise words from Dave......

for under £750, i'd consider pretty much anything from the late 80s/early 90s as all will be getting rarer and all will be creeping up in value soon, as they are kinda in that half way point between being banger fodder and future collectable. If you plan to try and make a few quids on it, I'd stick with popular brands, as they always command best prices, mk1 golfs and rwd drive fords being good examples of this. Having said that, anything from the late 80s/early 90s will be pretty much free motoring for a year, so just buy something you fancy!

My "go to" budget cars in your criteria have always been:

Peugeot 205 Diesel - Cheap everything, cheap ebay parts.
Volvo 340 1.4 (Or the 1.7/2.0 in the 360, but the 1.4 is the best on fuel if you just want a runaround. They usually sell for cheaper too). - Again Cheap ebay parts, cheap everything.
Something bigger? I've always wanted to give a Peugeot 405 a go with the TD lump in.

Not to mention that these are all sub-£500 cars. So that's extra money to spend on the Cortina.