Classic & Sports Car goes back to the future

In celebration of 30-years in print, the Classic and Sports Car team took the greatest high performance bargains from 1982 – cars that cost up to £60,000 new, but could be yours for as little as £1500 now – and road tested them 2012 style.

They discovered that
the nine-strong combination of two-seaters, full four-seaters and 2+2s not only hold up as fine driving machines today, but might also be today’s best bargains, merging modern performance, practicality and reliability with all the thrills of classic driving.

Top of the 2-seater test drive was the iconic Ferrari 308 GTSi which has a top speed of 148 mph and priced around £20,000 today, the Porsche 911 SC was placed best of the 2+2s which can be picked up for around £10,000 and best of the 4-seaters was the BMW M535i and can still reach 139 mph and is priced at approximately £5000.

“Buying a classic car is a great way to get behind the wheel of an exotic and high performance car, but without the very high prices of a 2012 showroom. The Jaguar XJ-S is an amazing car and good examples from 1982 can be found from a very affordable £1500. Those of us of a certain age, remember the hype surrounding the Bentley Mulsanne Turbo when it was launched back in 1982 with a price tag of £61,744, the one we tested was just £8000 – just over a 10th of the original price,” commented James Elliott, Classic & Sports Car Group Editor.

Posted in: Classic and Sports Car Group,Classic/Vintage