James Ruppert: the appeal of limited-edition cars is anything but limited

There are times when you wonder whether car manufacturers actually like cars, let alone their customers. When it comes to their old models, most are not that interested.

Recently, though, Honda went above and beyond for a reader who wanted to know the provenance of his car. He owned a CR-V 2.2 i-CTDi Executive registered in 2006 and finished in white. The colour is important because these were apparently courtesy cars for the McLaren Formula 1 team. Sadly, the pernicious secret-squirrel influence of data protection laws didn’t help and the results were inconclusive, but Honda’s people tried and are still asking around, so good for them.

Limited editions aren’t always worth a premium but they can sometimes be easier to resell. Mazda has gone to town with limited-edition Mazda MX-5s over the years to the point where they’ve became meaningless. Never mind: they are such brilliant sports cars that whatever they are, it doesn’t matter. So a 2004 1.8 Arctic Limited Edition Blue I saw, with rusty arches, 100k miles and very average paintwork, was £750. A great project for less than a grand. It came with 15in alloy wheels, what looked like special sunlight silver paint and some chrome on the quarterlights.

However, we are in the middle of winter, so a 4x4 would be useful. What could be better than a Jaguar X-Type? I stumbled across a 2003 Indianapolis with 140k miles, which was up for grabs at £1250. It had one previous owner and seemed very tidy and didn’t have rusty wheel arches. But it did have special platinum paint, xenon headlights, reverse parking beeps and 18in alloys.

Then there was a 2006 Mini Park Lane with bonnet stripes for £1400. That is nothing to pay for a runaround. It had done 110k miles, which were all accounted for, and had no advisories on the MOT. It was leathered up inside, too, with heated seats and full-on climate control. What’s not to like?

Obviously, everyone adores Peugeot 205s, so a 1.6 Mardi Gras from way back in 1994 would be worth having. Especially with just 64k miles. The downside was an automatic gearbox, but I am old and getting tired so that seems fine to me, plus it was priced just below £1500.

Vauxhall seems to have cornered the market with limited editions, but they don’t excite me. I’d much rather have a 2004 Audi A4 Limited Edition, a 1.8T saloon. The one that caught my eye had done 125k miles, had all the mod cons and cost £2495. Details on the ‘limited edition’ part were rather sparse but, hey, this is a seriously cool German-built saloon.