10 Cool 1980s Cars For Under £15,000

At the risk of making you feel old, 1980s cars are now truly certifiable classics. Something from the decade of big shoulder pads, bigger mobile phones and terrible yet brilliant pop music will now be 36 years old at the absolute minimum.

As always happens in these situations, that’s sent the used car market for this period a bit mad, with prices of many of the decade’s iconic cars sent skywards. Not all of them, though. We’ve expanded our usual £10,000 budget to £15k instead to open up a few more options, but it’s still entirely possible to get a proper ’80s classic for less than a boggo Dacia Spring. Here are 10 of our favourites.

Alfa Romeo Alfasud

The 1980s brought us no shortage of brilliant sporty hatchbacks, but what if you wanted one that would rust if you even briefly thought about the concept of moisture?

Yes, the Alfasud pretty quickly developed an unfortunate reputation for dissolving like a vitamin C tablet, but that didn’t detract from what was one of the best front-wheel drive chassis of the era, teamed with typical Alfa Romeo good looks and a range of fizzy four-cylinder boxer engines. What’s more, if you find a good survivor these days, you won’t have to pay anything like as much as you would for a similar condition Golf GTI or 205 GTi.

Really, it’s the thinking person’s ’80s hot hatch. As long as you have access to dry storage.

Toyota Supra A70

Would it be borderline blasphemous to say we almost prefer the straight-edged looks of the third-generation A70 Toyota Supra to its more beloved, smoothed-off A80 successor? Maybe, but if we’re wrong, we don’t want to be right.

Living in the shadow of its younger, cult-making replacement has kept prices down too, with even clean turbocharged 3.0-litre straight-six models easily found in our budget. And you know what the A70 had that the A80 didn’t? That’s right: POP-UP HEADLIGHTS.

Range Rover Classic

Yeah, we know. We put the P38 Range Rover on our list of cool cheap ’90s cars, and the L322 on our list of cool cheap ’00s cars. What can we say? The older a Rangie gets, the more it seems to appeal, and that’s arguably no more apparent than in the original.

Launched in 1970, the car retroactively named the Range Rover Classic gained a more practical four-door version in 1981, around the same time it started to go a bit more upmarket. Frankly, it looks as utterly classless now as it did 40 years ago, especially when fitted with the 3.5-litre Rover V8. Our budget should find you a less-than-pristine but usable example, so long as you don’t mind getting your hands dirty every now and then.

Ford Fiesta XR2

If the Alfasud’s a bit crumbly for you, there are other ’80s hot hatches that have escaped the grip of used value lunacy. Take the Ford Fiesta XR2. Whether a Mk1 or Mk2, just look at it. Red pinstripes! Pepper-pot alloys! Rally spotlights! It’s a look we like to call ‘Southend chic’.

It was never regarded as one of the very sweetest-handling hot hatches of its day, and with output peaking at 96bhp in the Mk2, it definitely wasn’t the most powerful. Let’s face it, though, any small, light warmed-over hatch from this period is going to feel like a revelation next to most bulky, modern performance cars – and you can properly thrash this one without risking your licence.

BMW 6 Series E24

Of everything on this list, this is the one we’re most surprised is still as cheap as it is. The combination of silky straight-six power, timelessly handsome looks and the simple virtue of having a BMW badge should, by all rights, have sent prices of E24 6ers properly loopy years ago.

Yet here we are, with multiple serviceable-seeming examples of even the 3.5-litre 635CSi easily in budget. Granted, most of them are automatics, but seriously, what’s putting people off these things? Do they have whatever the car equivalent of BO is, or something? We can’t work it out, but we’re not complaining.

Saab 900 Turbo

The ’80s marked the first time the car industry went turbo-crazy, although back then it was an exciting, boosty, whooshy way of making a car go faster, not a boring, character-sapping way of making an engine more efficient.

Take the Saab 900 Turbo, which whacked a big snail on the four-pot engine of the much-missed Swedish brand’s sturdy wedge of a family car. As well as being quick, comfy, safe and handsome, there’s typical Scandinavian reliability built into them too, and 900 Turbos can handle truly astronomical mileages. Once again, rust is the biggest danger – but find us an ’80s car where it isn’t.

Citroen CX

Launched in 1974 to replace the DS, the Citroen CX really hit its stride in the ’80s when various kinks of the early cars were ironed out. With a one-spoke steering wheel, big pillowy seats, hydropneumatic suspension and a truly bizarre dashboard arrangement, this wedgy aero champion is prime Citroen.

That does, of course, mean it might also be a bit of a headache to run, but just look at it! It’s a truly magnificent thing that exemplifies the ideal of the big French luxobarge arguably better than anything else – better even, dare we say, than the DS?

Chevrolet Corvette C4

If any car deserves to be permanently accompanied by an ethereal synth soundtrack, it’s the C4 Chevrolet Corvette. No, it’s far from the best performing ’Vette ever, but it is one of the most attainable and, in our eyes, one of the best looking.

With its flip-up headlights, optional ‘Salad Spinner’ wheels and digital LCD instruments, a C4 is bound to make you feel like you’re the lead in a gritty ’80s detective show, trying to shake off your demons as you drive down the Florida Keys at sunrise. Forget about the fact it’s 5pm on a Tuesday, it’s raining, and you’re in Peterborough.

Honda City Turbo

We’re back to hot hatches again, although this time, we’re looking to Japan, and one of the only instances the variable cam profile enthusiasts at Honda turned instead to turbocharging to boost the power of one of its smaller engines.

The City Turbo is, of course, best known as The Car With The Option Of A Scooter In Its Boot™, but it’s a fascinating little thing in its own right. The addition of a turbocharger to its dinky 1.2-litre engine upped power to 99bhp in the early cars, and 108bhp in the later Turbo II, while its minuscule dimensions and pugnacious stance meant it was a zippy little so-and-so.

Unsurprisingly, they’re hard to find in Britain, but there are a couple for sale here within budget as we write this. Naturally, bonus points if you do find one with a Motocompo in the back.

Porsche 944

The follow-up to Porsche’s first front-engined car, the 924, 1982’s 944 shook off all the ‘it’s got the engine from a van’ jibes by… well, not having the engine from a van. What it did have instead were a range of meaty four-cylinders, ranging from 2.5 to a massive 3.0 litres in displacement, still sending their power via a gearbox mounted in a handling-friendly transaxle layout.

At £15k, any examples of the range-topping 944 Turbo that you keep telling yourself you want are going to be ratty, but the naturally aspirated versions are still extremely sweet little cars, and at this sort of money, the world really is your oyster with them. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.