Alfa, Jeep, Vauxhall, and more: 15 used car Stellantis bargains from £1,500+

The ginormous Stellantis mega corp is going through something of a rejig at the moment. Quite what shape its dozen or so brands find themselves in on the other side of it, we don’t yet know; what we do know is that our fingers are crossed for a robust outcome for its most iconic badges. Stellantis holds the keys to Alfa Romeo, Fiat and Jeep, among others. And what would the car world be without the Giulia, 500 or Wrangler?

Maserati, too. Its current range is a pleasing (if expensive) mix of SUVs, sports cars and an unlikely scissor-doored supercar. No saloons at the mo – which is why you ought to snap up a classic Quattroporte like this one while they’re going cheap. Under seven grand for a 400bhp Ferrari-derived 4.2-litre V8 engine with four seats and a boot attached is good value before you even get to how spiffing this thing looks.

Or you could opt to spend half as much on an engine that’s arguably even better. The 3.0-litre V6 in this GTV is nicknamed ‘Busso’ and sounds simply extraordinary. Performance won’t be too shabby, either, with 197bhp and 199lb ft for 0-62mph in a smidge over six seconds and a 149mph top speed.

Yet we’d forgive you for not caring a jot about how it performs and snapping it up simply for its styling. This Nineties reincarnation of the GTV badge entered a then bustling coupe market with true design swagger. And some crucial Alfa cues, like the offset front number plate which has been heartlessly abandoned by the Italians’ latest crop of crossovers.

Not just a cute little hatchback, but a true cultural phenomenon. The hot hatch market was in a little bit of turmoil come the mid-Nineties, soaring theft (and in turn insurance rates) distancing them from the mitts of the young buyers who’d always coveted them.

Citroen wasn’t having any of it. The muscular VTR and VTS versions of its diminutive Saxo offered varying insurance and finance deals to make them readily available to the excitable folk queuing round the door for the chance to modify or crash one. Perhaps both. They remain slightly spiky things to drive now, but they represent a seminal experience all the same. No wonder a mint VTR now demands £10k. If only Stellantis would let Citroen bring it back…

A mere fraction of the price gets you a contemporary Peugeot with almost twice the power. The early Noughties 206 GTi isn’t the most loved of old Pug hot hatches, but it was seriously potent in later 180 form and made a decent fist of challenging the mighty Renault Sport Clio 172 of its day. Not least by being, y’know, eight better.

And hasn’t its design aged well? Hats off too if you remember its hugely cinematic, affair-coded TV advert. If Stellantis could dig up some budget to bring back epic Peugeot ads, we’d be most grateful.

The Stellantis model is built around platform sharing, of course. Vauxhall was no stranger to such things before it joined the group, however, having nabbed Australian Holdens and called them its own a whole decade or two earlier.

Peak Aussie import was surely the Monaro muscle car, a classically proportioned two-door, four-seat coupe with a stonking great V8 up front driving the rear wheels through a manual ‘box. Now there’s a recipe that’s fallen out of favour. Much as we like the new Mokka GSE, we’d rather have a comeback for the mighty Monaro.

Curiously enough, a similar recipe is responsible for this gorgeous Maserati 3200GT, a twin-turbo 3.2-litre V8 hustling it along with a stick-shift and a sole driven axle. And all at a grand less than the Monaro.

This was a big moment for the Modenese brand, launched in 1998 under Ferrari ownership and signalling a fresh look and direction as it replaced the angular Ghibli, Biturbo and Shamal. Reports suggest Maserati actually wanted to called it ‘Mistral’, but Volkswagen owned the rights – the name having since been used on a Bugatti.

The best-looking modern Maser? With its briefly implemented boomerang rear lights – replaced during its subsequent facelifts – it’s difficult to argue. Especially at a piffling £13k.

Maserati looks for significantly less money. Well, kinda. The Fiat Grande Punto launched in 2005 with a striking Giorgetto Giugiaro design that didn’t look a million miles from his 3200GT from a few years previous. No, it was never quite as good as a Fiesta or Polo nor as solid as a Yaris or Jazz. But being able to affordably roll around in something that looked this good must have been fabulous. It’s still cheap now, too, this 1.4-litre 16v Sporting having just enough power to live up to the looks while commanding just £1,500.

You’ll need an early example to avoid all the fussy facelifts that followed, mind, while the most patient of folk can hang around for a rare Abarth Grande Punto to pop up in the classifieds. It’ll be worth the wait.

Yep, Abarth really did make a car that wasn’t a stickered-up Fiat 500. Two, in fact. As well as those Puntos sold early in the Abarth reboot, there’s the 124 Spider launched in 2016. Essentially an ND-gen Mazda MX-5 with a 168bhp 1.4-litre turbo engine, stiffer suspension and gnarlier styling, it was a refreshingly mad little thing if you could endure its hectic ride and tug boat soundtrack.

After initially losing a heap of value they now appear a fairly robust proposition with prices typically in the low to mid teens. For the muscle car pantomime an Abarth 124 introduces to everyday driving, it’s arguably worth every penny.

A reborn Fulvia would have picked up the baton nicely from this. The Fiat Barchetta was an achingly pretty but predictably flawed little roadster, most notably for being sold only in left-hand-drive form.

And yet look at it! From its dainty door handles to its beguiling body-coloured interior trim, there’s design chutzpah everywhere. And its peppy 1.7-litre engine extracted more fun from a front-driven chassis than you might dare imagine. Your price for not simply buying another MX-5? A mere £4,495.

Stellantis was birthed in 2021, essentially an amalgamation of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and Peugeot S.A. (PSA). The former lived a financially wild life before the merger, pouring vast sums of money into blockbuster launches of the Bravo and Stilo hatchbacks. Which sadly didn’t leave enough behind for it to fund the gorgeous little Fulvia Coupe concept of 2003 into production.

It could have been a sweet to look at, cheap to buy reincarnation of this excellent 1972 Fulvia Coupe, an early pioneer of both fun front-wheel-drive cars (that trend caught on) and a petite V4 engine (um, less so).  “It loves to rev and makes a nice sound,” according to the ad. Above all it’s just plain gorgeous for £15k.

Jeep claimed European Car of the Year honours in 2023, proof surely that it’s being nicely marshalled under Stellantis ownership. And yet cute and fun though the victorious Avenger is, it’s emblematic of what’s gone awry at Jeep. Namely that it sells a bunch of neat and competent crossovers rather than indestructible off-road heroes.

So rather than laying down a healthy deposit on a plug-in Compass, how about fully owning this brilliantly boxy old ‘XJ’ Cherokee? Classic Jeep grille and proportions and with a gloriously oversized 4.0-litre straight-six terrain to haul you over more than merely the local speed bumps. Just ignore its supercar-rivalling CO2 emissions…

Jeep is among several US brands that fall under the enormous Stellantis umbrella. Dodge is another, and though its overlords have had the good sense not to attempt a European relaunch, we remain miffed that the Viper was never officially sold on British shores.

Not that it stopped these absurd, 8.0-litre V10 propelled roadsters from getting here anyway – just ask TopGear.com’s resident ridiculous car addict, Mark Riccioni. A smidge under £40k for a car with 400bhp, 465lb ft and a brilliantly old school manual, rear-driven attitude is a bargain now. Practical too, if you consult Ricci. “The Viper continues to happily serve as a daily driver,” he reported two years into ownership. Believe him?

A slight change of pace here. Bet you’d forgotten DS, hadn’t you? Stellantis already has Citroen to think about, after all. It’s recently launched a new DS No 7 SUV to hoover up more sales than its gloriously eccentric No 8 saloon thingy, but gloriously eccentric is what we really want from DS. Even if the buying public has a tendency to vehemently disagree.

The last time DS went fully weird was its DS 5 of 2011; mixing the monobox shape of a classic French people mover with a more rakish, coupe roofline, it made only moderate sense to a moderate number of folks. Yet some brilliantly long-legged diesels are now awash in the classifieds for as little as two grand. A prime specimen of a ULEZ-uncompliant car that looks supreme value to anyone living more rurally.

Another example of the current Stellantis philosophy – plonking increasingly stylish bodyshells atop ordinary underpinnings – that predates the mothership’s existence by a couple of decades. At the core of the 406 Coupe was the platform of the regular rep saloon, albeit a rather pert handling one. Nineties Peugeot had the good grace to phone up Pininfarina and subsequently recommission a rejected Fiat Coupe design, carving out perhaps something even more beautiful in the process.

These 406s look fab, drive well and have simply never gained the pricey classic car status they surely deserve. Which does mean normal folks like us can snap one up for a nice round £3,000.

And yet this is the comeback we surely crave the most. Stellantis could have quietly euthanised Lancia, but has instead boldly recurved the Corsa and Grandland into the Ypsilon and Gamma. It’s even gone back to rallying. What chance a reborn Delta Integrale, or more iconic yet, a 21st century Stratos supercar? The mid-engine, rear-drive, V6-powered Maserari MC20 is sat waiting patiently to donate its layout to ensure the reboot feels authentic. And it too handles rather wackily in the wet…

Presuming Stellantis has bigger fish to fry, though, there’s this utterly gorgeous original up for auction from £750,000. Not quite the bargain we promised (sorry), not least when there are dozens of kit cars out there for a mere fraction of price, primed and ready to fool casual onlookers they’re the real thing.

But the feeling deep inside that you bought the real, authentic thing, as it cooks your thighs and sprains your ankles with its cramped, offset cockpit? Priceless.