How to buy a British sports car on a budget

I should have known to bring a toolkit. If I had a screwdriver, I could have removed the Elise’s gearlever gaiter and realigned the plastic cover plate, enabling me to find reverse. If I had a set of spanners, I could have released the tension in the TVR’s manual door-release cable, allowing the mechanism to re-engage. But I didn’t, so the Lotus needed a push back, and I had to drive the TVR with a ratchet strap across my lap.

Welcome to British sports-car ownership, where occasionally there are issues. But look: everyone talks about old Porsche 911s as a paragon of reliability, while earnestly enquiring if the engine’s IMS bearing has been done. In both instances, I knew I could have done something about it, if I’d been a proper boy scout. Neither incident took the shine off a lovely day out – in fact, there’s something curiously reassuring about having an issue that (tools permitting) you’re able to do something about. Nowadays it’s electrics that go cock-eyed, and you ain’t fixing those with a spanner.

Photography: Jonny Fleetwood

So yes, two of the three cars we chose to highlight the brilliance of used British sports cars had issues, which is not only ironic, but could make what follows ring hollow: “Follow TG’s advice and buy a munter!” Let’s spin it differently – we present the unvarnished truth; you decide whether it makes sense. As I see it, there’s two reasons you might still be reading at this point. Firstly, you’re thinking a 420bhp, 38,000 mile Jag convertible is a lot more tempting a daily than whatever new car £24k will buy. Or secondly, you’ve got a bit of spare cash for a weekend weapon, something that’ll show you a good time and ideally build in value a little.

TVR did the decent thing and died at the right time. Finite supply, fond memories and masculine reputation have ensured values have never really plummeted despite a (well deserved) reputation for flakiness. The T350c’s 3.6-litre straight-six barks into life more softly and quietly than its reputation would lead you to believe, but then proceeds to hand out an object lesson in intimidation. The cabin is an oven-ready roasting tray, with you hemmed in like a basted bird between transmission tunnel, door and A-pillar. It’s cramped and confusing, nothing is labelled, the controls are heavy, the experience initially unfriendly.

But doesn’t it look good/go hard/sound great? This was the holy trinity of TVR ownership, and its brutish appeal should not be underestimated. The T350 (built from 2002 to 2006) is the mid-point in aggression levels. Want to ramp it up further? The Sagaris was mad. And so, perplexingly, that’s the one everyone wants, with prices now around £75,000.

But you can have nine tenths of the experience with this or the entry-level Tamora for a half or a third the money. No ABS, traction, cruise or any other type of control. Other than you. The front end is super-sharp; the rear actually quite soft and inert. There was a good trade in having the factory suspension set-up adjusted. I’d be tempted to look into that. Three hundred and fifty bhp pushing a tonne: fast in a straight line, no doubt, but speed along a bucking B-road? Better to keep the car’s dominant personality on a tight leash. 

Or buy something more relaxing. The Jaguar XKR is quite the daily smoker. The experience is far easier to adapt to. There are electric motors and screens and digital readouts you understand, buttons where you expect them. And it feels like a hell of a lot of car for the money. It’s big, it’s handsome and it was Jag’s top-line sports car until the F-Type came along just seven years ago.

Sports car? Give me a break. It’s a great, big, softie wafter. The gearchanges slur lazily, the CATS adaptive damping seems best adapted to sofa living and the engine takes some rousing. There is speed there, but the XKR would rather play the roguish charmer and purr about the place. It does that very well. Everything works, the electric motors are quiet, the screen graphics as rudimentary as I remember. Will it go up in value? Unfortunately, too much supply, and justifying a 4.2-litre s’charged V8 is hard. But these were £70,000 cars new, and good, clean coupes are now down around the £15k mark. Depreciation from here on will be glacial.

But to be collectable, cars need to be more specialised. Or, expressed another way, less usable, which I’m sure makes sense on some level. Anyway, few are as single-minded as the original Lotus Elise. It’s a joy – just so beguilingly supple, simple and smooth. As years ticked by, Lotus made the mistake of making the Elise ever harder and faster, but none is more communicative or happier than this. It dances with the road. The cabin is starkly beautiful, the scantily padded seats are just enough to take the edge off. Prices dropped below £10,000, but have slowly, steadily been climbing for a few years now.

The MkII, launched in 2000, had wider door openings, narrow sills, a vastly superior roof arrangement. Later ones replaced the 1.8-litre Rover K-Series with a Toyota motor. Improvements, no doubt. But I’m not convinced there’s another car more in tune with a British B-road than the original Elise.

More than that, there’s something about all three of these cars that’s in tune with their surroundings – cars being used in the environment they were originally developed for. Summer in the British countryside, rolling hills covered by swaying crops, quiet hamlets, Saturday afternoon at a pub and a British sports car parked outside.

At this scale, the global car industry feels very local. I’m romanticising. And unfortunately the whole ‘Buy British!’ thing comes with a heavy whiff of little England. But British cars didn’t stop being great when flat caps and MGs were all the rage. So buy something you love and use it. Look after it, invest in it, fix the issues. And, above all, carry a toolkit.