10 Used Sports Cars For Under £10,000

The sports car is an endangered breed in 2025. Browse our list of the best new ones you can buy, and you’ll see we struggled to even cobble together a list of 10, and it’s full of depressing statements like ‘available from stock only’ or ‘soon to go out of production’. What’s more, the cheapest car on that list, the evergreen Mazda MX-5, is still nearly a £30k car these days.

Not that long ago, though, the sports car market was thriving, and the good news is that those once-expansive choices are now available at some seriously tempting prices. For a generous £10k budget, you can now pick up some of the best sports cars of the last few decades – and some for a lot less than that. Read on for our picks of the 10 best used sports cars for under £10,000.

Mazda MX-5

“Oh come on CarThrottle, an MX-5? Ugh, such a cliche.” Sure, but we stand by it – the reason the Mazda MX-5 pops up on so many Best Sports Car lists is because it’s one of the best sports cars, so hush your whining. 

Taking the classic recipe for a sports car – light weight, rear-wheel drive, manual gearbox, direct steering – makes for a deliciously engaging driving experience, and it’s hard to find anything more fun for less money. With three decades of MX-5s to choose from and numerous tuning and mod companies to tweak your car to your liking, it’s an easy recommendation. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried one.

Fiat 124 Spider

If the ubiquity of the MX-5 puts you off, then try one dressed in an Italian suit. The Fiat 124 Spider didn’t sell that well in the three years it was on sale, which is a shame as it’s essentially a more stylish MX-5 that now has the added bonus of relative rarity. 

You can pick up one for less than £9000 if you’re lucky, and for that you get smart looks, drop-top appeal and a punchy 1.4-litre turbo petrol engine with 138bhp. That doesn’t sound much but, like the MX-5, the appeal of the 124 Spider isn’t in brute power, it’s in handling and finesse. On a twisty country road, it’s great fun without risking your driving licence.

BMW Z4

Want something a bit more muscular than the ones we’ve been over so far? The BMW Z4 could be for you. Having been aroundover 20 years now, there are lots to choose from as little as £2000. 

But £10k will get you a more modern example with relatively low mileage, and it ticks numerous sports car boxes, with meaty engines, drop-top motoring and low-slung, involving handling. It’s very nice inside, too, especially if the original owner went nuts with the options list.

Nissan 350Z

It’s getting on a bit now, but Nissan’s sports car of the mid-2000s is still a great drive today and there are plenty of them about. You’ll have to sort through the over-modified, thrashed examples to find a good one, but with prices starting at around £4000 you can have yourself a 276bhp 3.5-litre V6 for a snip. 

The Nissan 350Z is low slung, with a snug cockpit and quick steering and, of course, rear-wheel drive. The Porsche Boxster had all the brand cred and the Honda S2000 won fans for its screaming engine, but the 350Z is a very legitimate alternative.

Audi TT

The Audi TT only went out of production fairly recently, which prompted lots of retrospectives appraising the long history of a car that caused a design revolution when it first arrived. But the TT is about more than looks – it’s a genuinely fun and engaging car to drive, with a fantastic quality interior that feels every inch the premium badge it wears on its nose. 

Ten grand will get you all manner of TTs, but that budget is also enough for the more fun second-gen TTS, with north of 250bhp and enhanced handling and characteristics. The mileage on these will be moderately high, but a full service history should give you plenty of reassurance.

Honda S2000

The Honda S2000 won’t be for everyone – especially if you’re tall, because you’ll struggle to get into it – but for those ergonomically gifted enough, it’s a tremendously talented sports car. The four-cylinder VTEC engine rightly gets lots of plaudits, with a redline of about a million rpm and an intoxicating scream when you let it sing. But the chassis is very impressive too, with very well sorted handling and suspension. 

Values are very much on the up, and anything sub-£10k these days is likely to be carrying plentiful miles. The good news is that in its day, the S2000 was famously robust, regularly outperforming far less specialist cars in reliability charts, and while a few weak spots have made themselves known in its old age – see our buying guide for more – as long as you find one that’s been well cared for, it should provide you with many more miles of happy, revvy, top-down driving.

Porsche Boxster

Let’s reiterate an oft-made point – a Porsche Boxster can be surprisingly affordable to buy, but it’s still a Porsche, and comes with Porsche running costs. That said, as long as you keep a big chunk of change aside to keep it running, a Boxster can be an absolute bargain.

You can pick up a high-mileage example for around £3000 although we’d recommend you spend a bit more than that to avoid scary bills the first time something goes wrong. Whichever version of the Boxster you go for, you’ll get exquisite handling that barely anyone can match, especially at this price point. It’s far, far more than a cheap alternative to a 911, so feel free to mock anyone that tries to tell you otherwise.

Toyota MR2

For a slice of mid-engined, baby supercar vibes with far less scary-seeming running costs than a Boxster, there’s also the Toyota MR2 to consider. £10k will buy you examples of all three generations, although the first two are getting scarcer and are more likely to be flakey in the bodywork department at this price.

Even if you go for the comparatively unloved third-gen car, though, you’re getting some legendary Toyota reliability in a mid-engined, two-seater package, with all the sweet handling balance and sense of exoticness that brings. They can be picked up for as little as £1500, so with a bit more to spend, you could find a seriously sweet example.

Suzuki Cappuccino

Live down a particularly narrow street? Or just find even a Boxster offensively massive? With a little patience, you could track down a Suzuki Cappuccino, one of a tiny handful of Japanese Kei cars to ever make it to the UK in an official capacity.

If you know Kei cars, you’ll know that the Cappuccino isn’t going to be a powerhouse. With regulations limiting its titchy 657cc turbo three-pot to 63bhp, you’ll find more power in a machine that makes actual cappuccinos. But with just 725kg to shift around, an engine that’ll rev out to over 9000rpm, and the go-kart-ish sensation of speed that only comes with a really tiny car, you’ll still find the Cappuccino a surprisingly thrilling thing. Assuming you can fit in one.

Alfa Romeo GTV/Spider

Yes, the late ’90s Alfa GTV and its drop-top Spider sibling were front-wheel drive only, and yes, it’s an old Alfa Romeo, so it probably will break at some point. But the fact it sent power to the front shouldn’t put you off, especially since it was regarded as one of the better-sorted FWD chassis of its time.

The duo were available with the operatic 3.0-litre Busso V6, which, when paired with their wedgy Pininfarina styling and the sumptuous ribbed leather higher-spec cars came with, lent them serious baby supercar vibes. The 2.0-litre Twin Spark four-pot was a feisty little engine in its own right, too, and GTVs and Spiders equipped with it are lighter on their feet than the V6. There are plenty of cars on this list that are better to drive and cheaper to run, but arguably none will make you look as good as you will in a GTV.