Buy them before we do: our top second-hand picks of the week

Fancy an Alfa Romeo 4C for just over £35,000? These are our top bargain buys we've spotted for sale

The used car market is brimming with tasty deals, but sometimes it can be hard to tell the wise buys from the potential money pits.

Fear not, our used car experts have compiled their picks from the classifieds. See anything you like? Best to move fast and buy them before we do...

Citroën C6 £5495: Buyers have never flocked to big Citroëns in quite the way people who fancy big Citroëns have always thought they should, largely due to the question mark over their complexity and the reliability and depreciation issues attached therein.

So hats off to those brave few who took the plunge and bought one of these lovely C6s when they were new. In fact, in the land of the UK, fewer than 1000 people did, which makes it something of a rarity and therefore, in our eyes, a collector’s car.

But those who have travelled in one can hug themselves in self- congratulatory glee, knowing that this sleek aerodyne can, thanks to its self-levelling hydropneumatic underpinnings, waft with the very best of them.

Find a used Citroen C6 on PistonHeads

There’s a soft, pillowy ride with plenty of pitch and roll, and a sybaritic interior of leathery goodness, with just enough of the traditional Citroën idiosyncrasies to keep it interesting and set it apart from its graceless German rivals.

But it’s the view from outside that makes the heart skip a beat and must be worth the ticket price alone. It’s an undeniably beautiful old Hector, this C6, long and low and redolent of those wonderful big Citroëns of old. It even has a concave rear window, for heaven’s sake.

It’s not all perfect, of course. The V6 diesel engine under the bonnet of the car we’ve found is smooth enough but, at the end of the day, it is just a diesel. There are petrol-engined models, but you’ll be hard-pushed to find one. The dashboard is a bit ho-hum too, but who cares when you can buy a good example of one of these luscious things, with a full service history and a mere 67,000 miles on the clock, for just £5495?

Got a used car question for Ruppert? Then email autocar@haymarket.com

Alfa Romeo 4C £35,493: Controversial, this little Alfa. We all wanted to love it dearly, and when it first came out and we saw it and we sat in it, we all did. Then we drove it and found that the unassisted steering tugged a little – no, quite a lot, actually – and we discovered the car was in fact driving us. But it’s still a tempting buy especially at £35k.

Renault Sport Spider £29,995: There’s lots to like about this low- slung roadster with a 150bhp 2.0-litre DOHC petrol engine, as used in the Clio Williams hot hatch. Its clever construction is mostly aluminium, and it handles like a honey. This is one of only 100 right-hand-drive models made, so the asking price seems quite reasonable

Ford GT40 Replica £69,995: We know what it looks like but it isn’t. If this were a real GT40, you could expect a six-figure price, but for somewhat less, you can get this Tornado kit car powered by a 302 Ford V8 and equipped with xenon headlights and air conditioning. A fraud, you may think, but probably more comfortable than the original.

Mazda RX-8 £1335: Spare change can get you into the driver’s seat of this quirky Mazda, with ‘suicide’ rear doors and a delightful rotary engine that matches smoothness with power but, alas, doesn’t do long-term relationships. You could always buy it cheap, budget for future expense and enjoy the ride in the meantime...

Auction watch:

Honda Beat: The trouble with a lot of otherwise admirable cars – the Mazda MX-5, the original Lotus Elan, the Fiat X1/9 – is that they’re simply too big. But the Honda Beat is a tiny mid-engined jewel of a car that packs a 63bhp, 656cc, 8000rpm three-cylinder engine and two seats into an overall length of just under 130in.

Styled initially by Pininfarina, this ‘kei’ car’s design influenced other small convertibles, most notably the MG F. Immense fun to drive and rarer than hen’s teeth, this neat example sold at auction recently for under £3000, which in anybody’s book is a bargain.

Get it while you can:

Ferrari California T Price new £156,060. Price now £147,000: The old entry-level Ferrari, the 2+2 drop-top California T, has been replaced by the even more desirable Portofino, and where you would have started your spending at £156k on the old car, you’ll now need at least £166k for the new one – and that’s before you’ve added those must-have options. Buy a 2017 California, though, fully specced and with negligible mileage, and it’ll set you back just £147k, a saving sufficient to fuel it for a few years, or maybe to enjoy a lavish summer break in Portofino.

Clash of the classifieds:

Brief: Gentlemen, I want a four-wheel- drive car that is both interesting and entertaining. I’ll give you £10,000 each to spend.

Audi A8 £9995: You might think I’ve lost it, recommending a first-gen A8 for £10k. But honestly, where will you find another with just 31k miles on the clock? From a private collection, this car’s had no expense spared, looks like new and comes with electric, heated everything. And a 310bhp V8 capable of delivering 0-60mph in 6.9sec. As for interesting... well, I could cite the A8’s status as the first mass-market aluminium production car, or the opportunities for pretending you’re in Ronin.

Alex Robbins

Subaru Impreza WRX STI £9995: Nice-looking ride, Alex, but a bit too anodyne to drive, really, what with its quattro four-wheel drive being there for added security rather than for any great performance gain. But this tuned WRX STI will serve up proper fun, especially since it has even more power than the A8 and can crack 62mph in 4.1sec. It may be a tad vulgar, but great entertainers have never been ones to fade into the background.

Max Adams

Verdict: The A8 is interesting but overpriced. The Impreza is uncouth but interesting and entertaining, and therefore it wins.

Mark Pearson