German powerhauses: which of these 16 used performance cars would you buy?

Does anyone do overpowered practicality like the Germans? A country of rich engineering heritage that happens to have stretches of derestricted motorway was probably never going to major in anything else. Perhaps the epitome of the genre – the car you’d shove in front of any extra-terrestrials bemused by what a ‘German powerhouse’ could be – is the Audi RS6.

Choose your fighter; the outgoing C8-gen car is probably the perfection of the breed, not least for its doolally, 621bhp GT spin-off, while the second-gen C6 deployed a Lamborghini-adjacent V10 to power its quattro all-wheel-drive. We’ve opted for the blistered-arch classic C5, though, to live our best Layer Cake life.

We’d love a Porsche 918 Spyder – Germany’s prong on the holy trident of hybrid hypercars – but things like ‘cost’ and ‘sense’ present reasonably large hurdles in our procurement of one. Well, what if a sensible estate car had nabbed lots of its powertrain knowhow and could be had for little more than a new Golf R?

Praise be – that very thing is called the (deep breath) Porsche Panamera Turbo S e-hybrid Sport Turismo, and the title atop its spec sheet is just the first of many leviathan entries. Chief in our minds is its 671bhp peak output, 193mph top speed and claimed 94 miles per gallon (if you remember to plug it in, of course). There are a few too many drive modes and just a mite too much tech to make it one of Stuttgart’s all-time greats – but whirr silently to the tip in one and you’ll feel pretty spiffing nonetheless.

Buy a brand-new Kia Picanto, perhaps the cheapest slice of decent car you can currently obtain in the UK, and you’ll be paying £5,582 per cylinder. Roll the dice on this 175,000-mile, 20-year-old Touareg, and you’ll be paying just £299 apiece. Yep, there’s a genuine, oil-burning V10 in the front of this big Vee-Dub, its 309bhp and 553lb ft proving more than enough to tow a Boeing 747 in period as part of a vivid publicity stunt. This was no Cayenne rival in the corners, but it was clearly a car that would haul a horsebox or caravan with such proficiency you might feasibly forget it was even there. Stick a post-it on the dash, just in case.

The BMW M5 is one of the sturdiest pillars on Planet Performance Car. A name rich in heritage for over 40 years, each one arrives on a vast wave of hype. And in its gradual introduction of auto ‘boxes, turbocharging, all-wheel drive and hybridisation, nor is it ever far from the ire of traditionalists either.

But in recent years, it’s spawned a svelte cousin that somehow ducks the same expectation to deliver a curious slice of cool away from the limelight. Both M6 and M8 coupes offered four-door, Gran Coupe iterations that basically paired dainty frameless doors with all the M5’s power and might. And they were rewarded with an alarming rate of deprecation for their efforts; at £18k, this 2014 M6 Gran Coupe costs less than a Fiat Panda. Well, until your first service or tyre replacement…

This is a BMW whose values have soared in the other direction entirely. Unloved and undervalued for years, the era of the jaw-dropping E31 8 Series is now. The more abundant, V8-powered 840 Ci is still relatively attainable – similar money to the M6 in the previous slide, in fact. But if you want the 5.6-litre V12 of the 850 CSi – and you do, don’t you – then prices soar further north. Much further.

Small wonder, when there’s a not-too-tenuous link to the McLaren F1 lurking behind those pop-up lights (both share the S70 engine code, if little else) and a 375bhp peak that was hefty for its time. Drop all four windows down for pure, pillarless access to the noise.

Germany does power brilliantly, but it’s also deft at carving out pioneering new niches. This is the car that strutted stylishly so the M6 above could sprint; before the first-gen CLS, the concept of a four-door coupe dwelled only in the real ale-addled rants of Rover P5B owners. The philosophy caught on rapidly after Merc’s ‘banana’ proved so ripe to buyers.

Topping the range was the CLS 55 AMG, utilising the same supercharged 5.5-litre V8 as the SL 55 that so bewitched Jeremy Clarkson in the early days of new-age TG TV. And crikey, doesn’t it still look spectacular today? It might take a little gumption to spend as little as eight grand on one, but what a hero you’ll feel if it all goes swimmingly.

Oh, to be a Fliege on the Wand of Porsche’s GT department when the concept of motorsport-ing a monstrous crossover was touted – in a room usually only privy to conversations about how tricky the clutch on the next 911 GT3 special should be.

Andreas Preuninger’s team wrung out some phenomenal agility from an already sprightly SUV, though, the 631bhp twin-turbo V8 perched up front the mere tip of its iceberg of boasts. Its unlikely agility is best surmised by its 7m 38.9s lap of the Nürburgring, which places it above a Bugatti Veyron or Mercedes SLR. While the ride is a little tough, it’ll still do most of the things Cayenne normally do, too – this one even has roof racks…

Proof that a fast, ‘bahn storming German wagon doesn’t need a humongous engine shoehorned into its snout. The Arteon R was the Golf R for mature folks: none of the tuning scene or yobbish YouTube fails, but all of its 316bhp, 2.0-litre turbocharged performance and gnarly 4Motion all-wheel-drive grip.

Okay, so the Shooting Brake version offered negligible extra space over a regular Arteon, but who’s interrogating that, when a wagon looks this good? Brand new, they topped fifty grand; this Approved Used example has covered less than 10,000 miles and asks just £37k.

Real car enthusiasts aren’t meant to covet convertibles, for numerous, very dull reasons to do with ‘structural rigidity’ and ‘frequently wobbling their own rear-view mirror into the cupholder’. Yawn! Because when an engine is as spectacular as the 8,500rpm, naturally aspirated 4.2-litre V8 scattered across the performance Audi spectrum in the late 2000s and early 2010s, who wants to cocoon themselves within a sealed metal box, blocking out some of its inimitable sound? 

With a host of cars under £20,000 with modest (ish) mileages, get ahead of the curve as spring approaches.

Would you look at that: another car we’re not meant to hanker after as enthusiasts. Perhaps the Maybach’s greatest mistake was to relaunch a venerated old Mercedes-Benz sub-brand at the exact moment BMW pressed the reset button on the reputation of Rolls-Royce with unmitigated success.

The decision to buy one of these robustly designed things over a Phantom back in the early Noughties might have seen the dozens of staff you CEO (is it a verb?) assemble a coup on your leadership. And with even more haste than its 542bhp twin-turbo V12 could hustle all 6.1 metres and 2.8 tonnes of this longer-wheelbase Maybach to 62mph. But at £50k (or so) now, you can’t argue it’s a simply enormous amount of car for the money. For any money.

Or would one like their limousine to carry a little more clout at a cars ‘n’ coffee event? Alpina is the apple of any petrolhead’s eye – or at least it was before BMW’s recent takeover, the end product of which we’re yet to actually see. Rumour suggests it’ll be hefty and high end, a ground trodden by old Alpina’s take on the BMW 7 Series.

The Bovensiepen family’s remixing of the biggest Bee-Em began in the 1980s with the B11, but the B7 name arrived in the early Noughties to tally more neatly with its Munich base car. We’ve found a 2012 example (thus based on the F01 7 Series, model code obsessives!) on sale for still stocky £44,995. These things retain money.

Sorry. But we couldn’t list German powerhouses without a) the silliest G-Class and b) the wildest tuner of them all. Just like BMW and Audi, Mansory hails from Bavaria. There’s clearly something in the water running down from the German Alps. Perhaps this can rank among its subtler upgrades, too, given the base car was already so berserk in the first place.

As well as carbon-fibring every component bar the tyres and windows, Mansory tuned the 5.5-litre V8 turbo up from 536 to 829 horsepower. Which, by anyone’s definition of such things, is ‘enough’. As is the price: £569,500, or the rest of this list put together…

Porsche has been making SUVs, saloons and estates for over two decades now, vastly broadening its customer base. Thing is, 911s were always fairly practical to begin with, owing to their pair of useable rear seats, decent luggage space up front and the ability to sling a roof box on a lot of ‘em. They get no more powerhouse in their methodology than a Turbo. The latest, greatest 992-gen Turbo S deploys hybrid tech for a peak of over 700bhp. But wind back three generations to the 996 and you’ll still find almighty pace and – hurrah! – an actual manual gear lever in the middle of its cabin. Only the second on this list.

This £66k, 2002 example also boasts the ‘X50’ pack. Yep, if digging into 911 model codes wasn’t nerdy enough, we’ve found one with a rare, skunkworks performance kit. A kit which reworked several key engine components to lift power from 414 to 444bhp. Not far off a 911 GT2 in more sensible clothing, it’ll win you lots of friends at your next Porsche owner’s gathering.

Two things (we think) we know about electric cars. One, they often deliver a barely comprehensible amount of horsepower with what seems like bafflingly little effort. Two, they often lose a barely comprehensible amount of money with what seems like bafflingly little effort.

The truth is always a little murkier, of course, but there’s no doubt cars like the brilliant, range-topping e-tron GT do their bit to spread such rumours. In its 2022 launch spec, it peaks at 637bhp, and this example is one of many listed at comfortably below fifty grand. Or, about a third of its original price in fully stocked Carbon Black trim…

In what world is a 23-year-old Passat estate with 218,000 miles on its odometer worth over six grand? In a world where VW shoehorned a W8 engine under its hood. Like the Touraeg up top – not to mention the Bugatti Veyron, VW XL1 and Phaeton and the Audi Quattro – this was a pet project of then VW chief Ferdinand Piëch.

Meet the first and last production road car to use a W8, all four litres, 271bhp and 273lb ft of it. Modest figures today, perhaps – the Arteon elsewhere on this list possesses half the cubic capacity and cylinders, yet punches harder – but its EA888 engine is beyond ubiquitous beside the solo-use powertrain in this B5-gen Passat. A few hundred remain in the UK but are listed for sale rarely. If a good one pops up, grab it like you’re a particularly ruthless Touch the Truck contestant.

Overpowered practicality was our chief criterion at the beginning of this list, and surely motoring gets no more practical than a gargantuan seven-seat SUV, primed and ready for running your critters to all their clubs.

‘AMG all the things’ is an attitude that gave us the oddball R63 people carrier, a car with something of a cult following nowadays. The GLS63, perhaps less so, but who’s going to argue with an owner who tries to convince you otherwise? We’ve even found a brown one with cream leather to drop as many jaws as possible as you pull up to Saturday morning football with a whole five-a-side team spilling out the back doors.