Here are 11 great used cars from England to get you World Cup ready

You may be aware, dear reader, that some ‘football’ is currently taking place. The World Cup is in full swing and England, as we type these words, have a chance of bringing the trophy home. So as the team prepares for its quarter final against Norway, what better than a starting eleven of homemade cars to spur the team on?

Sure, you might be wondering quite what a) a Japanese saloon car and b) a rather dowdy looking one at that, is doing on this list. Well, this Nineties Primera was built in Nissan’s hugely successful Sunderland plant and in GT form, with the celebrated 2.0-litre twin-cam SR20DE engine up front and multi-link suspension beneath, was a quietly brilliant thing to drive. This one needs a little attention but promises much satisfaction at a mite under £3,000.

Oh, you’d prefer your British-built Japanese performance car (a surprisingly rich niche) to shout loudly about its performance rather than whisper it subtly? For that you’ll need this FK8 Civic Type R, which was manufactured at Honda’s now (very sadly) defunct Swindon plant.

The incongruity of a highly specialised hot hatch equipped with a turbocharged VTEC engine rolling out of the Wiltshire countryside still hasn’t dulled. And if you can see past its gnarly body kit, one of the most polished, sophisticated front-wheel drive cars in history lies beneath – with 316bhp, 295lb ft and a faintly ludicrous 169mph top speed among its bigger boasts. This increasingly looks like a bona fide classic – not least when your only chance of dipping towards the £20k mark is to accept a somewhat higher mileage...

We’ve avoided flirting too much with likening any of our 11 used car bargains to actual footballists, but think of the GP as a flighty little winger, punching well above its modest stature with endless agility and unexpected stamina. Sure, it occasionally misbehaves and might snare the odd red card, but it’s a fan favourite all the same.

There have been three generations of Mini GP and it’s perhaps this middlemost (and most mischievous) GP2 we love the most. Sure, it traded the original’s charismatically supercharged engine for a more conventional turbo. But experience the wilder fringes of its handling and you’ll step away both chastened and addicted all at once.

This McLaren, meanwhile, is the supremely talented striker who happens to be surprisingly amiable to local charity work and school visits. Back in 2019 it took all that we already adored about Woking-made supercars – stupendous twin-turbo V8 performance, the specifically deft and feelsome dynamics only a carbon-cored car seems to deliver – and stitched in more flexible luggage space, a comfier gait and subtler styling for a device you could feasibly live with every single day. So long as you didn’t mind your bags getting a little toasty in the long, slim boot sat atop its mid-mounted engine. Oops.

It’s not a classic McLaren, but it’s all the more likeable for its less frenetic, more easygoing nature. And we really love the way it looks. Plenty dwell below six figures now, including this decidedly classy grey on red example.

Almost all Jaguar F-Types outside of the wildly limited (in both production run and everyday practicality) Project 7 now look like ludicrous bargains on the used market. Perhaps the sensation is strongest in the halo SVR, a four-wheel drive though still boisterous sub-supercar. It could tear holes in the atmosphere, as its titanium and Inconel exhaust amplified the sound of its supercharged 5.0-litre V8, all while clawing forward with a level of traction fast Jags had rarely demonstrated.

The coupe topped 200mph and offered a carbon roof, while the roadster lopped 5mph off the top speed but let all of that riotous noise pour liberally into the cabin. It feels like a forgotten gem and a car you can leap into for the price of a modestly specified new BMW 2 Series.

We wouldn’t even know how to start likening the Nomad to a position on the football field. Its ludicrous mix of contrasting abilities has installed it as a firm TopGear.com favourite since its 2016 launch. A rugged off-roader and hedonistic track car rolled into one, it’s capable of striking both bullseyes without compromise. So long as you’ve fitted appropriate tyres for the task at hand, of course.

This example is sold through Ariel’s official channel – so you know you’re getting a good ‘un - and has all the juicy option boxes ticked. And whether you take it off road, on track or keep it purely between the white lines of the Great British road network, 300 supercharged horsepower motivating a bright red bird cage should feel scandalous in all the right ways.

The coolest Rolls-Royce of the modern era? Sure, it weighs as much as three Ariel Nomads, but the Wraith’s wisest trick is not fitting a ton of chassis systems to purse agility that patently isn’t there. It leans into its burly size and shape and drives with enough surefootedness to feel unwaveringly authentic. Even if a turbocharged 6.6-litre V12 sending 624bhp to only its rear wheels ensures there’s still some dynamism to explore.

Rolls’ signature backward-hinged doors are so much cooler when they’re up front rather than at the back, too; you’re assured of a very, very public entrance even to the local Tesco. And a car that commanded upwards of £250,000 new now resides under £80k used. A true bargain, then...

The second coming of the Defender represents an unmitigated success for Land Rover, the car outselling everything else it currently makes and carrying enough of its ancestor’s design swagger to convince enthusiasts it’s not complete heresy. Even if you’ll struggle to squeeze one along some of the narrow lanes a classic Landie skips gleefully through.

There’s a new update to the range, however, one which has quietly euthanised the stock, supercharged V8 car. It wasn’t perfect, but with 518bhp and 461lb ft to its name for a 0-62mph time of under five seconds – and plenty of drama in convincing such a plump, square shape to do so – it was awash with charm. And thus well worth hunting down in the classifieds, where they still command upwards of £60k, impressively...

Way back in 2001, something unexpected occurred. A slightly ramshackle looking sports car – its grassroots easily betrayed by its Ford Mondeo-sourced rear light clusters – emerged from a Leicestershire barn with some of the sharpest, most incisive handling available at any price.

Alright, some of it was actually constructed overseas in South Africa, but final assembly took place on our shores. And it felt humbly British in its execution, with fabulous dynamics allied to a Ford Duratec V6 given its wings by a pair of Garrett turbos for 310bhp and 0-62mph in around four seconds. And all without the driver aids and assists that were being labelled generously on its more established rivals.

TVR was, unbeknownst to early Noughties buyers, approaching its death throes, and this Noble lived up to the surname of its creator by galvanising the appeal of raw, undiluted sports cars. No wonder that an M12 which cost £45k new commands precisely the same a whole quarter-century later.

Or perhaps you want a more historic badge upon your welterweight sports car? The Exige stood for sublime handling and unmitigated focus for each and every one of its 21 years on sale. Early mk1s, with the cute, round headlamps of an original Elise (the car whose chassis it riffs upon), are increasingly valuable classics now, while the mk3 – with its sonorous V6 engine and baby supercar performance – is a brilliant car but one with a slightly more exotic remit.

This dinky, 4cyl mk2 between them arguably represents the purest distillation of modern Lotus; lord knows it’s not a two-point-odd-ton electric crossover. Its twin-cam Toyota 1.8 has just 900 kilos to hustle along and, not giving its best until you’re beyond 6,000rpm, it’s a unit that encourages you to dig deep and work the car hard, revelling in the feel of its unassisted steering as its limits approach. The hardest cored car on this list is surely the most rewarding, too, all for a smidge over £30k.

‘The best Aston Martin ever.’ It feels like a phrase worn thin in modern automotive writing, the company’s skip from DB9 to One-77 and Vanquish to Valhalla never without hyperbole. An outlier among them all is this, the DBS Superleggera of 2018. It took the decent but imperfect DB11 and cranked up the theatre, both in terms of looks and performance. Carbon panels helped justify its highly emotive (and potentially overpromising) Super Light suffix while the leap to 715bhp and 663lb ft outputs from its twin-turbo V12 helped it comfortably trade blows with a contemporary Ferrari 812 Superfast. No mean feat.

It’s the way it drove that truly impressed, though, possessing a rare mix of GT car loucheness and supercar agility, all wrapped up in a highly evocative shell. A proper Aston, then. The best ever? At less than half its original price, we’d happily take a punt on this one to decide conclusively...