If you need a car to do everything, a sports saloon could very well fit the brief, assuming that ‘everything’ doesn’t extend to carrying around washing machines or going on multi-day overlanding expeditions.
For most people, though, the appeal of something that combines saloon practicality and discretion with sports car pace is undeniable. While the few remaining on sale now are rather expensive, there’s still plenty of choice in the used market for the discerning sports saloon enjoyer for a four-figure sum. Here are 10 of our favourites.
Alfa Romeo 156 GTA Alfa Romeo 156 GTA
The Alfa 156 GTA is certainly not a perfect car, but it does provide a classic head versus heart quandary: on the one hand, you’ll be getting perhaps the greatest V6 engine ever in 3.2-litre, 247bhp form, a gorgeous exterior and an equally pretty cabin.
On the other hand, you’ll have to deal with second-hand Alfa reliability and a front-wheel drive chassis that couldn’t really handle the amount of power being thrown at it. We suspect those worries might dissipate the first time you explore the upper reaches of the Busso’s rev range, though. 0-62mph took 6.3 seconds, and it topped out at 155mph.
Audi S4 (B7) Audi S4 (B7)
Yes, you can get the sensational B7 RS4 for under £10k, but it’ll be a risky endeavour at that price. Far better, we reckon, to settle for its baby sibling, the Audi S4, which really wasn’t that babyish at all. It packed the same sonorous 4.2-litre V8, and while it was making 339bhp here rather than the RS4’s 414bhp, you’d still hit 62mph in 5.8 seconds and 155mph.
It’s not going to be as sharp to drive as the RS4, but it’ll still cover ground very quickly while you’re nestled in an interior that doesn’t feel all that dated 20 years later. Best of all, though, was that it looked nigh-on identical to a 2.0-litre diesel A4 – great for surprising bystanders with a burst of V8 rumble.
BMW 335i (E90) BMW 335i (E90)
Again, this budget just about covers a full-fat BMW M3 – if you’re prepared to settle for a high-mileage and likely problematic E36. The sensible money, we think, is on a 335i from two generations later. You’re getting 306bhp from a 3.0-litre twin-turbo (later single twin-scroll turbo) inline-six, all going to the rear wheels, just as it should in a BMW saloon. 5.8 seconds to 62mph and a regulated 155mph top end are hardly to be sniffed at.
To our eyes, the E90 generation is just getting more handsome by the day, and again, the interior’s really not a bad place to sit given this car’s now almost 20 years old. Find an (admittedly rare) manual and you’re laughing.
Ford Mondeo ST220 Ford Mondeo ST220
Yeah, yeah, it’s a Ford Mondeo, butt of endless photocopier salesperson company car jibes in its noughties heyday. The thing is, though, most photocopier sales happen online these days, and most people with company cars have EVs. The days of a Mondeo sitting five feet off your rear bumper in the outside lane of the M4 are long gone.
That means we can appreciate the hot ST220 version for what it is – a car from Ford’s imperial era of chassis engineering, complete with a lusty 3.0-litre V6 which, with 222bhp, is a rare example of a badge slightly underselling an engine’s potential. With a real-world 0-62mph time in the mid-sixes and a 155mph top speed, it could easily mix it with the best of the Germans at the time. And really, your neighbours don’t care that much about the badge on your car.
Jaguar XJR (X350) Jaguar XJR (X350)
Want something a little larger? Launched in 2002, the X350-shape Jaguar XJ may have had the same cream-teas-and-village-fetes styling as pretty much every XJ that came before it, but underneath, it was a very different story. It debuted a new aluminium unibody chassis that slashed the weight and improved the rigidity of its predecessor, turning the XJ from a bit of a relic into a thoroughly modern luxury saloon.
Then there was the small matter of the R version, complete with a supercharged 4.2-litre V8, pushing 395bhp. That would see you hit 62mph in 5.3 seconds and top out at 155mph, all while looking like a provincial mayor on their way to the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new library. Grace, space and pace indeed.
Mazda 6 MPS Mazda6 MPS
Mazda is very much not the first name you think of when it comes to sports saloons, but it doesn’t mean it’s not had a very appealing crack at the genre. For this hotted-up version of the handsome first-gen 6, a 2.3-litre, 256bhp turbocharged four-pot was paired with a six-speed manual and four-wheel drive for a sort of bigger, more grown-up take on the Evo/Impreza formula.
More grippy and Audi-ish than delicate and BMW-ish in its character, it was still a handily quick thing: 6.6 seconds to 62mph and a 150mph top speed. Rare, too: supposedly, there are only around 150 currently registered on British roads, and there was only ever a smidge over 1000 at its peak. A real cult classic already – if you manage to track one down.
Subaru Legacy Spec.B Subaru Legacy Spec.B
Your instinct when someone mentions a fast Subaru saloon is probably to think of one of the many, many WRX and STI versions of the Impreza, which is fair enough. These are getting quite expensive, though, and the little Impreza isn’t brilliant at actually doing saloon things.
The bigger Legacy is, though, and it’s had its own share of warmed-over versions. Lots of these were limited to Japan, but the Spec.B was officially sold in Britain, complete with one of the very few non-Porsche flat-sixes ever fitted to a car. That meant you got a deeply amusing soundtrack coupled with a standard manual gearbox and all-wheel drive. The 3.0-litre unit made 241bhp, and allowed the Spec.B to hit 62mph in 6.5 seconds en route to a 151mph top end.
Vauxhall Insignia VXR Vauxhall Insignia VXR
Vauxhall’s Insignia was the brand’s last gasp in a now-dead lineage of family saloons that stretched back to the 1950s, and at the time of its launch was pretty much the most normal car you could imagine.
Normal, that is, apart from the VXR version, which saw a 2.8-litre turbocharged 321bhp V6 stuffed under its bonnet. Unlike its infamously wayward front-driven Vectra VXR predecessor, the Insignia got all-wheel drive to keep things in check too, making it a bit of a cross-country beast, if not the most involving car on this list. 0-62mph took somewhere in the six-second region, and top speed was limited to 155mph – until the aptly-named Unlimited option arrived in 2011, bumping that to 170mph.
Volkswagen Passat R36 VW Passat R36
The Golf R32 may have stolen all the headlines, but VW’s early R-badge experiments went further than that. Take the Passat R36. That name referred to its 3.6-litre VR6 motor, which developed a healthy 296bhp, good for 62mph in 5.6 seconds and – you guessed it – a 155mph top speed.
Available solely with four-wheel drive and a six-speed DSG auto ’box, it would comfortably keep pace with more expensive, powerful stuff like the Audi S4. What’s more, the B6 generation Passat is another car that’s ageing impeccably inside and out. The R36 was a surprising hit in Japan, which is where a lot of second-hand examples come from these days.
Volvo S60 R Volvo S60 R
We finish off with a visit to Sweden and the ever-sensible folk at Volvo. Not that they didn’t have a wild streak in the 2000s, because they decided to stuff a turbocharged 296bhp inline-five into the S60 and top it off with a tricksy power-shuffling Haldex four-wheel drive system.
A considerably rarer prospect than its longroof counterpart, the V70 R, the S60 R would crack 62mph in 5.7 seconds (and if you’ve read the rest of this list, you can probably guess its top speed). Find one in the holy grail spec of Flash Green over Atacama leather, and you’ve got a true visual event too, especially with the utterly bizarre spaceball manual shifter. We’ll never see a car like this from Volvo again.
