5 Fast, Used 7-Seater Cars For Under £10,000

We’ve all been there. You’ve just become a parent to quadruplets, so you need a car with plenty of seats, but you still want to go fast. Not only that, but you don’t have the tens of thousands lying around for something like a Land Rover Defender 130 V8 or Kia EV9 GT.

What’s that? You haven’t been there? Fair enough, us neither. But just in case you are in that very specific scenario, or you’re the getaway driver for a particularly large heist crew, we’ve rounded up five quick seven-seater cars you can buy for under £10,000. Although, for legal reasons, we cannot officially recommend any of these to getaway drivers, so if that’s you, stop reading immediately.

Vauxhall Zafira VXR

We don’t entirely know what was going on at Vauxhall in the mid-noughties, because as well as doing hot VXR versions of the stuff you’d expect like the Astra and Vectra, it also slapped the badge on its range of people carriers – the little Meriva and seven-seater Zafira.

In the latter’s case, that meant a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-pot sending 237bhp through the front wheels which, if we’re honest, was too much for them to deal with. Still, if you could quell the torquesteer, this utterly weird attempt at a performance car could crack 62mph in 7.2 seconds and top out at 144mph, all while offering the incredibly flexible seating layout the Zafira was known for. Truly a jack of all trades. Unless that trade is driving in a straight line under gentle throttle applications.

Ford S-Max 2.5

Vauxhall wasn’t the only company sticking hot hatch power in its people carriers in the noughties. Ford’s S-Max was pitched as a slightly sportier alternative to the uber-sensible Galaxy, and part of that sportiness involved offering the 2.5-litre turbocharged five-cylinder from the Focus ST as the top engine.

At 217bhp, it was down by a mere 8bhp on the Focus, but it would still allow the S-Max to hit 62mph in under eight seconds and a top speed of 142mph, with a snorty five-pot soundtrack to boot. Best of all, unlike the Zafira VXR with its many bells and various whistles, the 2.5T S-Max could easily be mistaken for a diesel, making it all the more entertaining when you managed to surprise a Golf GTI at the lights.

Volvo XC90 V8

The five-pot in that Ford was actually made by Volvo, but how about a Volvo with an engine made by Yamaha? That’s what you got with the 4.4-litre V8 the Swedish company offered in the S80 and XC90 in the noughties, which was assembled in Japan by the motorbike-slash-piano wizards.

Mainly aimed at the US market, this mighty engine was nevertheless sold in Europe, offering up 311bhp and 325lb ft, which could get the gigantic XC90 to 62mph in 7.0 seconds, while comfortably carrying an entire five-a-side team plus two subs. And if you need any more convincing, hop on YouTube and have a listen to what this engine sounds through with an aftermarket exhaust. You can thank us later.

Mercedes R500

The Mercedes R-Class was the sort of utterly weird car that could only have come out of the noughties, before car companies collectively realised that if you’re going to produce a new model, you’ll want to be decently sure people are going to buy it.

Sure enough, the market for a big, luxurious seven-seater estate/MPV crossover with a Mercedes badge was not particularly large (except for in China, where it remained on sale until 2017). That was especially true for the R500, which came with a mighty 5.0-litre, 302bhp V8, later upped to an even mightier 5.5 litres and 382bhp. In that latter form, it could hit 62mph in 6.3 seconds and would run on to 155mph.

And yes, we know there was a 6.2-litre R63 AMG too, but not only will you not find one for under £10k, you probably won’t find one at all – supposedly, a grand total of 12 were sold in Britain.

Audi Q7 4.2 TDI

Yeah, yeah, we know, it’s a diesel. But it’s a 4.2-litre V8 diesel with 335bhp and, more importantly, 561lb ft on tap which, when fitted to the mammoth original Audi Q7, would see it hit 62mph in 6.4 seconds.

Not only that, but if you were careful, you could still get 30mpg out of it. Not that you’d be careful when you had 561lb ft of torque under your right foot. But the best thing about driving one of these big oil-burning beasts? Being in the driver’s seat meant you didn’t have to look at that hideous exterior.

Shockingly, it is not ULEZ compliant.