James Ruppert
A quest for a used drop-top turns up some choice options for James Ruppert
Drop-top bargains for the summer
Idon’t just throw this all together you know. This weekly page may read like a jumble of used car half-truths trapped in a sack and then left to fight to the death, but it is actually much simpler – and weirder – than that. Indeed, a couple of columns from the recent past have come together and produced an odd love child in the shape of a good old-fashioned car sale.
In recent weeks, I’ve written about a ‘mid-life crisis’ convertible purchase with which I was nominally involved. Obviously, it had to be a sensible buy, with a decent boot and four seats. The Audi A4 I found was duly visited, thought about and then agonised over. That example has since been sold, but it did get me looking again at petrol Audi A4 Cabriolets, which are astonishingly lovely. A 2003 2.4 at £1450 I saw in some pretty crummy car trader pictures seemed ridiculous value. There was no indication that it was a category-anything write-off and it was ‘guaranteed with no faults’ by the seller, so it should get you through the summer in a suitably stylish manner. Otherwise, a 2003 3.0 at double the money – £2995 – might be the more sensible buy.
If you don’t like Audis, then the much less good Mercedes-benz CLK has rear seats and a splendidly large boot. There are loads of cheap ones in circulation, but if you have £8995 to spend, a 2007 CLK 280 with a full Merc history is hard to argue with.
Rewinding to the beginning of this search for a convertible, the first car mentioned was the Nissan Figaro – a 1980s old-school Micra in a retro frock. Cute, but it will rust, and apart from the pose, it’s not that great as a micro convertible. Prices are on the rise, though, and I did see a low-miles example put up for sale for £24k by some chancer.
Interestingly, our buyer never mentioned a budget. Older people have loads of money, so she could have anything she wanted, which is where we ended up going with this. Just for a laugh, I mentioned a 2002 Toyota MR2 I knew was possibly up for grabs. It was owned by a young person and consequently had been messed with. Chopped suspension, dustbin lid exhaust, stick-on chrome details, but all done extremely well by an engineering graduate, I might add. It had a hard-top, too, which is a good thing. Yes, reader, that’s what she fell in love with and bought for £3000. Who would have thunk that?
Well, we did a few weeks back, on these very pages. Anyway, here you have concrete proof that the majority of used car buyers are utterly unpredictable – and long may that continue.
I did see a low-miles❝nissan Figaro put up for sale for £24k by some chancer