Want a Ford Cougar? You gotta haggle...

I NEARLY bought a Ford Cougar by mistake the other day. Having been lured in by the online prospect of a cheap V6 coupe for the price most of you spend on package holidays I ended up in North London's dodgiest-looking secondhand car lot - and ended up walking away.

Sorry for the Minder-esque opening but that's genuinely how it happened. If you're not familiar with it the Cougar's a sort of two-door Mondeo with crisper detailing and an aggressive front end, and it's now in the same price doldrums the Capri was 15 years ago. In the end the one I looked at was in the midst of a three-deep crowd of rather ropey-looking cars guarded by two rather angry dogs with a sales office operated from - and I'm not making this up - a garden shed hastily erected in the middle. Oh, and the car itself had a broken radiator grille held in place with some string and made a rather worrying whine when it started up.

But the biggest disappointment was that walking away meant I couldn't down with some Arthur Daley-esque character and thrash out a deal. My boss had already told me if I'd be sacked from motoring journalism if I couldn't bag this V6 beast for under £500, but in the end I concluded this particular Cougar looked like one very poorly cat. Which is a shame because I like haggling - but apparently the vast majority of you don't.

Apparently 55% of you would rather not talk turkey when it comes to car prices and find the experience of negotiating a deal uncomfortable. My generation is apparently the worst for it, with 71% of younger buyers preferring not to get involved at all and would much rather pay full whack and get it over and done with. Which is staggering, because haggling is a time honoured way of getting more for your money.

It needn't be unpleasant and it's not about rude or abrasive to whoever's trying to flog you a set of wheels - all it takes is a polite "Can I make you an offer?" and doing your homework beforehand. Far from being intimidating, haggling is a wonderful game of motoring chess to be enjoyed and a skill to be honed. You learn what the car's going to be worth elsewhere and factor it into the negotiations. You use the little niggles and faults you find as bargaining chips. Most importantly you know the power of politely declining and walking away - if the deal isn't right or the seller's rude or dismissive, you stay calm and remember patience is the key to finding the right car.

That's part of the reason why I never go for classified ads which tersely end with 'NO OFFERS' - it almost seems a bit unsporting. Ending things with 'ono' - as in Or Nearest Offer - gives you and the seller the chance to strike up a deal that works for both parties, and it's important because it helps keep the market on its toes and prices realistic.

If you're thinking of getting another car don't be put off by the idea that haggling is frightening - it really isn't, and the more you do it the better a deal you'll get it. Top tip though; if it involves batting your way past angry dogs and chatting to shifty blokes in garden sheds, it's probably best looking elsewhere.

Originally published in the 2 March issue of The Champion

Is it possible to buy a £1,000 car in just one morning?

SIR BOB Hoskins used the long Good Friday to stop terrorists tormenting his gangland empire. I used it to find a cheap used car which – I hope – won’t blow up as soon as it’s delivered to its lucky new owner.

Thanks largely to an unfortunate incident involving a Suzuki Wagon R, a wet night and a kerb, my girlfriend’s mother is suddenly in need of a cheap secondhand motor. That’s why I was given the task of sourcing a cheap ‘n’ cheerful replacement which would be practical and easy to live with.

Surely not a challenge for Mr Champ Motoring Correspondent, whose day job is talking about clapped out old cars and who’ll happily waste an hour at Wetherspoon’s spending an imaginary budget on automotive tat? However, this particular mission involved spending someone else’s actual money on a real car, and I had just a grand to play with. Worse still, I had just one day in which to nail the deal – a bank holiday, no less. Is it possible to find a cheap used car, on a day when almost everything’s shut, before the sun sets?

The first thing I discounted was asking my usual pals if they had anything cheap knocking around, on the basis I didn’t want to lumber my girlfriend’s mother with a mouldy MG Midget or an Austin Princess that needs a light restoration. The big car supermarkets were out too, not offering enough choice of cars costing hundreds rather than thousands, and most of the private deals belonged to folk who – quite rightly – would much rather spend their bank holiday arguing with family or traipsing around IKEA.

In the end, salvation came from the places I’d expected to be the first to shut up shop for the Bank Holiday – small dealerships, who had plenty of gems knocking around if you dug deep enough. Among the cars within a 15-mile radius of our Maghull starting point were a 12-year-old Fiat Punto with plenty of life left in it, a Peugeot 206 which offered a low mileage and lots of history for a tiny bit beyond the budget, and a Toyota Corolla which had just done its 100,000th mile without so much as a hiccup.

In the end, the car of choice went to a family hatch I’ve always had plenty of time for – a Peugeot 306, which came with six months’ tax, a full MOT, and a more than healthy stash of service history. Yours for just £750, which proves you CAN pick up a decent secondhand car on a Bank Holiday if you dig deep enough.

So the better half’s happy that a reliable, affordable, family-friendly hatchback is now taking up the spot the misfortunate Suzuki once occupied. That the 306 has always been hoot to drive has nothing to do with it…

Online auctions are a used car nightmare

SECONDHAND Rovers are about as desirable as secondhand socks. That’s one of two lessons I’ve learned this week. 

The other’s a bit of a cautionary tale when it comes to flogging cars. It’s the third occasion I’ve cast my net into the deep, murky waters of cyberspace, and it’s the third time that the only catch I’ve landed are buyers who prove to be a nightmare.Why did I ever abandon the calm waters of The Southport Champion’s classifieds? 

This sorry story started on a still summer’s afternoon, when my trusty old Rover sailed through its third MOT. Yet even I knew the old dog couldn’t last forever, as the increasingly noisy gearbox in particular proved. With that in mind I put her up for sale, sure that a Rover fan out there somewhere – and I know, because I am one – would want to give it a good home.

I might as well have been flogging a pair of Victor Meldrew’s old Y-fronts, as it turned out. The classic car people, despite my best pleas, were unmoved by a cheap Rover, while a stint on a Facebook forum specialising solely in cars for less than £500 attracted precisely zero enquiries. As the weeks drew on and the prospect of the insurance running out loomed, I turned to the dark side and listed it on an online auction site. 

It sold in less than ten minutes, but I was about to relearn a valuable lesson. In online auctions, you have to deal with whichever punter puts up the money first. 

Any noble thoughts of the Rover “going to a good home” quickly vanished – this was a guy who didn’t want to pick up the car tomorrow, but “tomoz”. Or rather, it would have been had “tomoz” not been a day that constantly got moved back to suit his schedule. Eventually, a car breaker from Brum showed up a week later – and was completely disinterested in the pile of paperwork I’d spent three years accumulating. All he wanted to do was get his dirt-cheap car onto the back of his low-loader. 

The chap got his car and I got my money, but I couldn’t help but recall the bloke who refused to buy a scooter from me years ago because a scratch was bigger in real life than he’d interpreted it to be in the pictures, or the man who spent ages playing a hugely stressful game of will-he-won’t-he over whether to buy my MX-5. The internet is great for all sorts of things, but it’s also full of idiots who want automotive perfection for less than £500, and will happily throw all the grief your way if they don’t get it. 

Some things are better done the old-fashioned way. Flogging cars is one of them.

Future classics - my top ten tips

SUPPOSE you’ve got motoring’s equivalent of Mystic Meg’s crystal ball. What do you reckon it’d reveal as being the classic car stars of tomorrow?

One of the most fascinating pieces I’ve written for Classic Car Weekly so far is a rundown of what the secondhand experts at CAP have chosen as their candidates for automotive investments, which is as intriguing for what didn’t make the cut as the 20 modern motors which did. Everyone’s got their opinion as to what’ll be the stars of shows up and down the land in 10 or 15 years’ time, and with the article done and dusted I can finally get a few of my own favourites off my chest...

1) MAZDA MX-5 (1989 – 1998) The fact no less than four of the Classic Car Weekly team have owned one – including Yours Truly – speaks volumes about this ultra-reliable, ultra-fun and, for the time being at least, ultra-cheap rear-drive ragtop. Consider my shoes eaten if this isn’t a mainstay of the classic movement in 15 years time.

 2) PEUGEOT 106 GTI/RALLYE (1997 – 2004) Brilliant fun, perfectly packaged and already becoming increasingly sought after by hot hatch hunters. In fact, it’s looking increasingly likely the MX-5-shaped void in my life might get filled by a 106 GTI. Should I? Shouldn’t I?

3) ROVER 75 (1999 - 2005) I’ve already written that Rover’s swansong is tomorrow’s P6, and I still reckon a well-looked example – or its sportier sister, the MG ZT – is as cheap as it’s ever going to be. There’s plenty on offer right now for under a grand, but give it a decade and good examples of these gentle giants will be sought after.

4) FORD RACING PUMA (2000) You could argue the little Puma is tomorrow’s Capri, in which case this is the ultra-rare Tickford (in fact, just like its turbocharged Capri ancestor, the Racing Puma is a Tickford creation). Prices are already much higher than the standard Pumas, but with the rarity of the Racing Puma and the loyal following it’s already attracting, there’s only one way prices will go.

5) RENAULT WIND (2010 - 2011)  I might have enjoyed the French firm’s Twingo-based two seater when it was new but the Great British Public didn’t, so while it’s a bit of a flop now its rarity should count in its favour. Quirky styling and fantastically simple flipping metal roof are bonus points on a car that, even now, you don’t see every day.

6) PEUGEOT 406 COUPE (1997 - 2004) Italian styling house Pininfarina worked wonders with the Parisian repmobile favourite to create a striking beautiful coupe. Best spec is the 3.0 V6 but 2.2 HDi versions are already proving popular with fuel-conscious enthusiasts.

7) FIAT COUPE 20V TURBO (1995 - 2000) As above, but with added Italian flair and loopy amounts of punch from the five-cylinder turbo beneath the bonnet. Any car that manages to make Fiat Tipo underpinnings look this good has got to be in with a shout.

 8) SUBARU IMPREZA TURBO (1994 - 2000) The original, four-door versions of the Scooby Pretzel are cheap now – you can, if you look carefully, pick them up for less than £1,500 – but it won’t be long before they’re being coveted as classics. Escort RS2000s, remember, were cheap and plentiful a long time ago...

9) BMW 8-SERIES (1990 - 1999) CAP’s list included no less than three BMWs, but they missed out this one, which price-wise is where the original 6-Series was 15 years ago. Not that I could afford to run around in a secondhand 850CSi, of course.

10) VOLKSWAGEN POLO G40 (1990 - 1994)  Only 600 imported into the UK originally and they’re rare, characterful pocket rockets now. Worth seeking one out for the addictive whine the supercharger makes. Plus, they go like stink.

Feel free, however, to disagree...

The full feature on CAP’s tips for future classic investments can be found in this week’s edition of Classic Car Weekly, published Wednesday, April 24.

So you want a secondhand supermini...

AN OBSERVATION about first cars. All the sensible people I know, having chucked away their L-plates, go for something sensible that’ll start up first thing on a frosty morning. The petrolheads don’t. 

There’s a lot to be said for making for your first car an automotive adventure in itself, which is why my first car was a 1983 Mini. Despite being held together largely with gaffer tape and string I loved driving it but even I’ll concede it wasn’t exactly an everyday car, because every day was a new and exciting way for it to entertain you with a breakdown. Whisper it softly, but during my first stint as a reporter in North Wales my “everyday car” was a borrowed Vauxhall Corsa! 

So I understood completely when a friend asked for a few car buying suggestions, not on some crusty old Sixties sports car, but a sensible, cheap secondhand supermini that’d actually be capable of getting her and her clobber up to a new job in Northumberland. She also bought a Mini as her first car, and while she’d rather sell her right arm than her pride ‘n’ joy I can understand why she’d want a more sensible automotive sidekick for the long trips to the North East. 

There’s plenty on offer - even in these days of spiralling insurance, it’s still possible to buy, insure and tax a decent set of wheels for less than a grand – but if it were my money I’d be looking at Peugeot’s 306, VW’s Lupo, Skoda’s Fabia and the earlier, funkier versions of Toyota’s Yaris. They’re all usefully younger than my trusty old Rover, should eake out a few more miles to the gallon and – by virtue of being younger – have plenty of life left in them. The Peugeot, in particular, would offer you more smiles per gallon too because it’s always been a fine handler – perfect if your other car’s an old Mini and you’ve got some Northumbrian country roads to play with. 

But, when it came down to sealing the deal, it wasn’t a 306 she went for, or a Yaris, Fabia or Lupo for that matter. In fact, she’d gone for the supermini you can pick up for buttons these days because everybody owned one and as a result there’s still millions to choose from. The supermini I’ve driven on countless occasions and always secretly enjoyed because it rides and handles so well. The supermini, in fact, that I passed my driving test in and which – had I not decided to go for that infernal Mini – probably would’ve been my first car. 

The supermini I’d completely forgotten about. Ladies and gentleman, I give you the Ford Fiesta!

Owning a Jaguar XJR is a stupid idea, no matter how cheap the insurance

THE woman from Confused sounded a bit, well, confused. When would I be interested in taking up insurance on a supercharged V8 Jaguar?

It's very nearly November, which in the Life On Cars household means enduring the expensive ordeal of insuring both a £300 Rover and a Mazda MX-5 at roughly the same time. With each year of driving around and not claiming for the cost of a crumpled heap of metal in a hedge my insurance has got a little bit cheaper, but I'm still paying more the cost of a year's insurance for the ancient Rover than the cost of the car itself.
Slightly depressed by that realisation, I turned to that opium of car enthusiasts, eBay, and immediately came up with a far more suitable banger. All 3.2 litres of a Jaguar XJ8, and mine for £750. I very nearly headed for the Buy It Now button, but then I clocked the wheelarch rot and a service history with more gaps than a jeans shop. So I moved on to the next offering.

Big mistake - I'd found a tidy T-reg Jaguar XJR, which back in the day would have set golfers back a cool £51,000 but was here, in the great Arthur Daley forecourt of cyberspace, for £1,750. True, it had 124,000 miles on the clock but it looked to be in good nick, and the thought of having 370bhp at my leather-lined, wood-trimmed disposal seemed tempting enough to look past the prospect of getting less than 20 to the gallon. It is, Jag people will know, a fabulous car; refined and graceful enough to wear the Big Cat badge with pride, but blessed with a 4.0 litre V8, beefy alloy wheels and sports trim and suspension for added zestfulness. Petrolhead heaven, basically.

Drunk with delight, I idiotically went to an insurance comparision website to find out how much it'd cost a twentysomething male working in journalism - which in insurance terms is about as dangerous a profession as they come - to make sure it was beyond my aspirations of automotive avarice. It wasn't. Someone as hamfisted as me could insure Coventry's finest, fully comp, for a shade over a grand, which unlike the Rover is less than the car itself cost.

I woke up the following morning and knocked the idea on the head, having realised in the cold light of day that having a supercharged Jag outside the house would be a stupid, expensive idea.

The only problem is, the insurance companies keep ringing me up now and suggesting otherwise!

UPDATE: An earlier version of this article included a picture of the special edition XJR 100 rather than the standard XJR. This has since been amended.

How to pick up a classic luxury Rover for peanuts

YOU DON'T park a Rover P6. You dock it, like a luxury liner.

A luxury liner, as it turns out, that my mate's just sailed into port for less than a grand. He was going to buy a brace of Triumph Spitfires long past their sell-by-date as a job lot, but decided at the last minute he'd rather go for the leather-lined barge from the Sixties instead. I don't blame him, because what the old girl lacks in sportiness and open top thrills it makes up for in style and caddish character.

Naturally, at that sort of money it needs a bit of work but it was still in good enough nick for me to take a pew in the leather-lined captain's chair and fire it up, treating both us to one of motoring's greatest soundtracks - the baritone burble of Rover's 3.5 litre V8. The car door Vinnie Jones used to such brutal effect in Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels was a P6's, so Guy Ritchie obviously agrees with me that the old Rover's got a geezerish swagger to its style, but that engine note and the laid-back performance it brings is undoubtedly the P6's best feature.

It's also the reason why I wouldn't - no, couldn't - buy one, because one of my all time favourite saloons has also got an unquenchable thirst for the jungle juice. The only P6 I'd ever want is the V8 version, but because I can't afford to run something that struggles to get 15 miles to the gallon the ocean liner Rover is out of the question. Helpfully, the Government's agreed to suspend its plans to raise fuel duty, but for P6 perusers it just isn't enough.

I hopped back into my own Rover, the rather more realistic 200 Series of Hyacinth Bucket vintage, and quickly realised there is a way to blend the reliability (don't laugh) of the later cars, engineered with BMW and Honda help, with the Midsomer Murders looks of the old ones. You might laugh now but the Rover 75 is motoring's bargain of the moment.

It's got all the style and comfort of the old P5s and P6s but thanks to Rover's turbulent tumble towards extinction and the car itself having all the street cred of a pensioner's bus pass good 75s can be readily picked up for less than a grand. Trendy it isn't but it's a lot of car for the money.

More importantly, the 75 is tomorrow's P6 - I'll eat my own shoes if collectors aren't fighting for the good ‘uns in 15 years time. Get yours now while they're still peanuts...

The class of 1994 was brilliant for car classifieds

SO THE Champion's 18 this week. Your favourite local paper can, among other things, legally get the drinks in without worrying about being asked for its ID by the bloke behind the bar.

I've been celebrating the anniversary by working away on the special birthday supplement you'll find delivered with this week's edition - a task which meant trawling through the thousands of papers we've put out over the years, to uncover all those juicy front page splashes hidden away in our secretive and extensive archives.

It's a pity then I ended up hooked on a rather different bit of Champion history - the car classifieds. If, like me, you're one of those weirdos who still finds the Auto Trader strangely absorbing (and I don't mean the coarse, inky paper it's printed on either), then you'd love looking through the secondhand bargains Champ readers were prepared to flog you all those years ago.

Yes, it's true that when the first ever Champion was published the number one single was Mariah Carey's tragically bad cover of Without You, but I would have put up with that to buy a clean Capri Ghia for £550. The same car today, now considered a bit of classic, is four or five times that. You could take your pick from a host of very tidy original Minis for between £500 and £600, and - if you weren't that desperate to get anywhere in a hurry - a slightly ropey Citroen 2CV with eight months' MOT was yours for £250. If only there was a way of somehow transporting these then-unwanted motors from 1994 to 2012, because all these old stagers are very sought after these days.

Even more annoyingly cheap were 1994's brand new arrivals. Would sir be tempted, for instance, by a lovely Alfa 155, which in The Champion's first week was yours for just £13,577? The same money these days would struggle to get you into a mid-range (and much smaller) MiTo. I know the class of 1994 were only just being introduced to electric windows and airbags, but they still got a lot more for their money then you do now. You could also experience the thrills of driving a Fiat Coupe or a Volkswagen Corrado without having to peel the boiled sweets out of the ashtrays. Then again, if you'd ventured into a Ford showroom at the time there's a very good chance you'd have ended up lumbered with an Escort.

So to celebrate The Champion's big anniversary I've decided things were better in the good old days. Maybe I'll think differently in 18 years' time...

Yes, you can still buy cars for £100

AN expensive shirt, a half-decent hi-fi system, an iPod Nano, a bottle of single malt or a really good night out in any big city.

If you had the princely sum of £100 you could blow it on any of these and still be smiling about it this time next week, but I've got a much better idea. Why not spend it on a set of wheels instead?

That's how a Renault 5 for the price of a first class rail ticket has ended up outside my house, and despite costing almost nothing in car terms it's still smoking its way around Southport more than fifteen years after rolling out of a car showroom in Birkdale. Commuting really doesn't come much cheaper.

What did I get for my fistful of dollars? A 15-year-old hatchback with a slightly wonky driver's door, 116,000 alleged miles on the clock, an interior lined with cheap seat covers and suspicious amounts of hay and loose screws, and door mirrors tinted green with a thin layer of moss. It has literally some service history. I was also pleased to discover that it's red, although I only found this out recently because I bought it without even going to look at it first.

But its ancient engine still pulls you out of junctions not only quickly, and very quietly too for such a cheap car, while absolutely everything still works on it. I can also boast - and I didn't spend hours looking this up, I promise - that my £100 steed was designed by the same chap who did the Lamborghini Diablo. How many M-registered Ford Fiestas can you say that about?

It's amazing how many cars are out there for next to nothing, as long as you're not being choosy and know where to look. My girlfriend, the car's co-owner, is also impressed, as you can find out here.

For the price of Britain's most expensive rail ticket - that's £1000 between Newquay and the Kyle of Lochalsh - you could have bought a whole fleet of these, and still have enough left over for fuel and road tax.

Now that's what I call motoring.