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Compared to previous celebrations of our top 50 favourite cars on sale, this time we varied just one thing: we imposed a £50,000 price cap.
This was not because of the correlation to the number of cars included but, in an age when Nürburgring-crushing hypercars seem to go on sale with only slightly less regularity than compact crossovers, we thought it might bring a welcome change of pace.
Otherwise, the usual rules apply, which means that there are no rules. These cars are not united by being the best in their classes, nor by having won group tests or the number of stars awarded in road tests. The only thing that binds them together is that, for a whole host of reasons both subjective and objective, we just really like them.
One more thing: every year the pool of choice widens, giving us ever more cars from which to choose – so congratulations to all that even made the list, for that in itself is a real and great achievement. They're ranked in order, starting at number 50 and working all the way up to number 1 - officially Autocar's best car you can buy today. Pricing stated is the lowest on-the-road price you'll pay to get into one of the cars listed new, without any options.
Written by Simon Davis, Andrew Frankel, Richard Lane, Matt Prior and Matt Saunders
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50: Audi RS3 - from £45,705
It used to be said when you bought a Ferrari you bought an engine and they chucked in the rest free. Today a snarling 2.5-litre, 394bhp five cylinder motor makes the RS3 the most powerful hatch on sale. We love it. If the rest of the car were as good, the RS3 would make the top ten.
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49: Vauxhall Astra - from £18,350
In every office there is the human equivalent of the Vauxhall Astra, the one sitting in the corner, quietly getting on with the job; the one who’ll never be the life or soul of any party, and lacks the charisma needed to join the high flyers. But the quality of the work is always beyond reproach. Same here.
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48: Skoda Kodiaq - from £22,630
Curious though it may sound to many reading this, most people don’t require a car that’s great to drive. They just want something fit for the purpose required by their lives. And for those needing a seven seat SUV, the Kodiaq is precisely that. It’s not fast, it’s not fun, but it gets the job done.
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47: Toyota C-HR - from £21,880
All praise to Toyota for trying to do something different in the excruciatingly dull compact crossover sector. The C-HR not only looks cool, it’s decent to drive too, thanks to an excellent chassis. With a more worthy powertrain, it would have halved the distance to the top of this list.
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46: Land Rover Discovery Sport - from £30,145
It says something for the enduring nature of its qualities that despite its high pricing and the age of its underlying design, the Disco Sport (née Freelander) claims its place on this list with both hands. Objectively others are now better; subjectively, it’s still probably the most desirable in its class.
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45: Abarth 124 Spider - from £29,625
Given how Fiat has plundered Abarth’s name with a series of overpriced, underachieving Fiat 500s, you might expect more of the same here. But no: the Abarth Spider is a genuinely good car. Just don’t think too hard about the genuinely great one on which it is based: the Mazda MX-5.
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44: Kia Stinger - from £31,995
If fortune really does favour the brave, the Stinger will be a rampant success. Proof that there are few places that still remain off-limits for the Koreans, the Stinger is likeable and effective. With less weight and better fuel consumption, it could have been a world-beater.
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43: Volkswagen Up - from £9,325
The fact that so few car makers have come up with better city cars in the seven years the Up (and its Skoda and Seat clones) has been on sale speaks volumes for the strength of its original design. Cheap but never nasty, it feels more like a mini-me Golf than a budget car. That will always be hard to beat.
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42: Morgan 3-wheeler - from £32,435
We tend to like cars that look forward rather than backwards – but, from a brand that has turned nostalgia into an art form, we’re prepared to make an exception. This is not the fastest or most expensive Morgan – it doesn’t even have the most wheels – but it is the best car it makes, and by far.
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41: Jaguar XF Sportbrake - from £34,955
SUVs, 4x4s, off-roaders, crossovers: you can’t move for ‘em. But some carmakers are perceiving a time when what’s cool now will no longer be – and rakish, attractive estates are back in. If that happens, the XF wagon will be ahead of its time. If not, it’ll stay the choice of the wise few.
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40: Range Rover Evoque - from £30,805
While Jaguar was still searching for a way to boost its sales, Land Rover hit directly on the answer. The Range Rover Evoque is a compact, classy SUV with a first-class interior and looks barely changed from the concept variant. It was instantly desirable in 2011, and remains so now.
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39: Hyundai i30N - from £28,010
If you’re going to start a performance arm, pinching the man in charge of the most famous of them all – BMW’s M division – and giving the gig to him is not a bad way to start. Hence the i30N is all an old-school hot hatchback ought to be: raucous, lively, and enjoyable.
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38: Nissan Leaf - from £26,180
Nissan started selling its battery-electric vehicle while most carmakers were still doing the sums. They couldn’t make them add up, and at first Nissan couldn’t either. Eight years on, with nearly a decade’s production experience and the world’s best-selling electric vehicle on its hands, it does.
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37: Jaguar F-Pace - from £34,775
Jaguar knew what every premium carmaker now knows: if you want to sell lots of cars, you need to sell lots of SUVs. There aren’t that many manufacturers whose ride and handling teams you’d trust to make a fine-handling 4x4. Jaguar, as it goes, is one of them.
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36: Seat Ateca - from £18,675
There was a time when Volkswagen wasn’t sure what to do with its Spanish brand Seat. Possibly it still doesn’t, so VW does what it does with its other marques: makes cars like the Ateca that look, feel and operate a bit like everybody else’s. Not very imaginative, but it works, and works well.
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35: Peugeot 3008 - from £22,870
There are signs that Peugeot is getting its mojo back, and although you might not think a C-segment crossover epitomises that, the 3008 is many things. As well as a funky inside and an interesting outside, it's also well-priced, holding its value used, and decent to drive.
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34: Skoda Karoq - from £20,860 (retail price)
The expanding use of Volkswagen’s modular platform and the ever-growing demand for crossovers means that the Karoq comes into existence. As the Kodiaq has already shown, a Skoda rather suits being an SUV/4x4/crossover. It’s a laid-back, family-friendly car for a brand with the exact same values.
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33: Hyundai i10 - from £9695
The margins between city cars are miniscule: a few millimetres, a few pounds, a few options. And the Hyundai i10 sits absolutely among the best of them. It’s superbly competitive in all the important areas for buyers. Importantly for us, it’s good fun to drive, too.
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32: Alfa Romeo Giulia - from £29,880
The Giulia marks a well-overdue return to form for Alfa Romeo. Here’s an attractive, rear-driven saloon that has what it takes to hold its own in a scrap against the likes of BMW’s indomitable 3 Series and Mercedes’ plush C-Class. Those rivals are undoubtedly more complete packages, but none are quite as endearing as the Giulia.
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31: Audi Q5 - from £40,175
It may not grab you by the scruff of the neck with its reserved, conservative design, but its refinement, material plushness and functional cabin all contribute towards the Q5’s heavy-hitter status in the mid-size SUV market. These qualities are also what sees it included in our top 50 list. Sensible, sturdy and sophisticated sum the Q5 up nicely.
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30: Volvo XC90 - from £50,435
Proof, if any were needed, that Volvo can do a posh SUV really rather well. That it offers genuine seven-seat practicality and an arsenal of semi-autonomous safety tech only broaden its appeal. Relatively vocal diesel engines and an at-times firm ride are our main niggles in what is otherwise a highly likeable SUV.
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29: Ford Mustang - from £33,675
How could a rear-drive, naturally-aspirated V8-powered coupé not make this list? The Mustang is a car that champions old-school character and charm, with a refreshingly care-free attitude towards things such as fuel economy and emissions. Not the sharpest tool in the shed dynamically, but there’s something innately appealing about a good old-fashioned sledgehammer.
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28: Volkswagen T-Roc - from £18,955
The old adage ‘better late than never’ sums the T-Roc up rather well; its tardiness in arriving in the crossover segment hasn’t held it back in any regard. Where rivals have a tendency be dull to drive and look at, the T-Roc looks the part and offers an impressively polished ride and keen handling.
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27: Caterham Seven - from £17,725
The Caterham Seven isn’t a car you consider buying with the usual requirements in mind. Practicality? Forget it. Space for the kids? No chance. This is a car that’s all about one thing: fun. Minimal weight, a range of increasingly powerful engines and a whimsical attitude towards grip make the Seven a pure driver's car.
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26: Nissan Micra - from £12,750
It wasn’t long ago that the Micra was one of our least favourite cars on sale. How times have changed. The fifth-generation model has managed to claw back some of the soul its predecessor so desperately lacked, courtesy of striking looks, decent on-road manners and standard kit. Designed with Europe in mind, and all the better for it.
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25: Mini Cooper 3dr - from £16,600
Granted, it’s no longer particularly miniature, but the latest Mini is still the small car of choice for the more fashion-conscious buyer. Looks the part (we’ll ignore the Union Jack tail lights), can change direction with the agility of a hummingbird and is reasonably practical. The ride’s a bit firm, but that’s no deal breaker.
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24: BMW i3 - from £34,075
The i3 isn’t exactly a car you buy as the result of a rational decision making process. Rivals are cheaper, more practical and - cruicially - offer better range. But none have the ability to turn heads or make the idea of EV ownership quite as appealing as the i3 does. Fun, attractive, desirable. Job done.
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23: Audi TTS - from £41,205
Quick steering, quattro four-wheel drive and a four-cylinder turbo engine making a mighty 306bhp, all wrapped up in a chicly creased body. That is the recipe for the TTS and, once you've factored in the exceptionally well-executed interior, it makes for a captivating one. You expected all that though. What you might not anticipate is just how fun this coupé is to drive.
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22: Suzuki Ignis - from £11,499
This baby SUV is one of Suzuki’s best-selling cars in Europe and that should come as no surprise. It is wonderfully easy to manoeuvre, surprisingly spacious, excellent value for money and it now comes with revised suspension after this magazine suggested that the overly firm suspension lacked travel. It’s a peculiar car but it’s also a characterful one, and we like it very much.
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21: Renault Mégane RS 280 - from £29,195
Hot hatchbacks don’t come much more compelling to drive than this latest Mégane. Having added both hydraulic suspension bumpstops and four-wheel steering to the car this time around, Renault Sport has created something that can be well-suited to fast road driving (in Sport-spec form) or singularly agile-handling by front-drive standards for super-precise track use (in Cup-spec guise). If you think front-drive is boring, this is a car you really do need to drive.
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20: Toyota GT86/Subaru BRZ - from £27,285
With the GT86/BRZ, it is necessary not just to accept a few compromises but to positively embrace them, for they make the car what it is. They're visible, audible, tangible characteristics that serve to remind you that you're driving one of the keenest, sharpest and most enjoyable small sports cars for a generation.
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19: Skoda Superb Estate - from £24,530
If you’re talking about value for money, the Superb is nothing short of a shining beacon and arguably the most compelling entry on this entire list. Spacious enough to carry a pack of dogs but less expensive to buy than any comparable rival, this pragmatic Skoda also handles decently and is handsome in an understated fashion.
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18: Mazda MX-5 - £18,795
If your aim is to gain an understanding of rear-wheel-drive handling, there’s hardly a better place to start that Mazda’s back-to-basics roadster. Prettier in its fourth generation than ever before (at least to our eyes), the MX-5 rewards commitment but equally will play the role of a cruiser. Were it a fraction quicker, it’d be near perfect.
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17: Ford Fiesta - from £13,715
Ford’s supermini is pint-sized proof that a humble purpose in life need not present any barrier to driving thrills. Especially when equipped with its efficient but peppy three-cylinder petrol engine, the seventh-generation Fiesta excels in in the way it blends performance, handling and ride refinement without apparent compromise.
It’s just a shame the price has crept up.
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16: Volkswagen Golf - from £17,785
Ah, the Golf. You like it; we like it, and you can have it in almost any flavour, from three-cylinder TSI to purely electric via a barnstorming 300bhp-plus all-wheel-drive estate and a plug-in alternative to the evergreen GTI hot hatch. Always at the sharp end of the class, this list wouldn’t be complete with it.
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15: Mercedes-Benz C-class - from £32,120
A recent facelift has done Mercedes’ best-seller no harm at all. This remains a supremely mature and desirable junior saloon that espouses the brand’s core attributes. What the C-Class lacks in engaging dynamics it makes up for in rolling refinement, particularly since the adoption of diesel engines first introduced on the more rarefied E-Class.
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14: Lotus Elise - from £32,980
It’ll likely put years on you to think that, although the current ‘S3’ Lotus Elise has only been on sale since 2011, Hethel’s aluminium-tubbed lightweight two-seater hasn’t changed that much since it was launched some twenty-two years ago. So don’t think about.
You certainly needn’t while you’re driving one: because whether your Elise has 134bhp, 250bhp or anything in between, it’ll deliver a wonderful sense of handling purity that’s second to none.
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13: BMW 3-Series - from £27,760
Plenty of cars in this list are in the flush of youth, having been on sale in their current form for but a year or three. The BMW 3-Series is not one of them. But even in its eighth year on sale, the ‘F30’-generation BMW couldn’t fail to impress a keen driver with its effortless handling poise, and its fullsome selection of strong engines.
That it’s practical, pleasant, refined and fuel-efficient rounds off a world-class package. 320d, 330d and 330e are the pick of the bunch.
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12: Ford Focus - from £17,930
We’ve yet to drive the new fourth-generation Ford Focus on UK roads, and so if this exercise was happening a month or so later, the car might even have ranked more highly. As it is, however, we can’t deny the potential of the car to pull head and shoulders clear of its ‘cooking’ hatchback opponents for driver appeal, which will always matter to the Autocar faithful.
Supple and athletic-feeling handling – but avoid the cheaper models to get the best from it.
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11: Seat Ibiza - from £14,255
Seat made some serious waves last year when it scooped the outright win in our supermini giant test for its excellent Ibiza. The car had to shake off the challenge of an equally fresh Ford Fiesta to do it, and has since defended its spot as Autocar’s top-ranked supermini against the new VW Polo.
No other small car combines dynamic excellence with first-rate cabin quality, practicality, youthful style and value quite as well.
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10: Honda Civic Type R - from £31,525
One of our favourite hot hatches marks a glorious return to form for Honda’s Type R sub-brand. The fifth generation of hot Civic is sensationally agile, feelsome and boasts performance to match with an oversquare engine that develops 316bhp and simply loves to rev.
In fact, we’re not convinced there’s any way to go quicker for less if you still need four seats.
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9: Mercedes-Benz E-class - from £36,070
This car is a reminder that not all German business four-doors play by the same rulebook. If you’d rather be soothed than stimulated by your everyday motorway commuter, there are few better options than the E-Class.
A knockout interior of first-rate quality and comfort is chief among its lures, but so is a four-cylinder diesel engine vastly superior to the one you’ll find in the outgoing car and a driving experience that feels luxurious in just about every way.
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8: BMW M2 - from £46,740
If you like a classically oriented driver’s car of compact proportions, with a powerful engine up front, a driven rear axle, a manual gearbox, and a cabin that will just about carry four passengers, you can still get a fine one for less than £50,000 – and it’s this one.
BMW’s most compact ‘M-car’ has a really muscular straight six and offers lots of bang for you buck, but also has a chassis that can put it to very good use. For lively, old-school, rear-driven handling thrills, look no further.
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7: Volvo XC40 - from £27,610
Gothenburg took a break from its usual SUV design approach for its smallest-of-the-breed, and it paid off spectacularly well. If there is a more distinctive smallish, tallish family car than the XC40 on the road right now, we’ve yet to test it.
To drive, the XC40 is a refreshingly unaffected sort, with a pliant ride and a likeably straightforward dynamic character – and like all of Volvo’s current breed, it’s a really pleasant & nicely finished car in which to spend time.
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6: Porsche 718 Cayman - from £42,897 (retail price)
Sixth place may feel like the bitterest pill for Porsche, and in many ways it’s a lot less than the excellent 718 Cayman deserves. Compared with the Alpine A110 ranked above it (spoiler alert), the 718’s got higher grip levels, better high-speed body control and more power. Only next to the likes of the A110 could you claim it wanted for anything in terms of driver involvement.
And now we'll take a look at Autocar's chosen top five in a bit more detail:
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5: BMW 530d Touring - from £48,445
BMW’s product lines have been no strangers to controversy of late, from the iffy design of some of its more style-conscious SUVs to a generation of M-cars that are only now starting to regain their once vaunted status.
In the mainstream market however, the company has rarely set higher standards. At one end, the 3 Series is peering over the edge of the grave yet is still arguably the best in its class; at the other, BMW has at last produced a 7-series capable of giving as good as it gets against the Mercedes-Benz S-Class.
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5: BMW 530d Touring: dashboard - from £48,445
But the 5 Series is the best of the lot and never better than as the 530d Touring you can (just) buy for less than our £50,000 cut off point. What this estate-bodied 5 Series offers is a dizzying synthesis of real-world ability from its usefully enlarged boot to its fabulous ride quality, with a dynamic sparkle anyone who has enjoyed some of BMW's best driver's car will recognise.
And that engine – it’ll propel this large five-seat estate to 62mph in five and a bit seconds, return 50mpg and offer either silence or a snarl according to taste. And they say diesel deserves to die. Truth is, if you had to have one car only to do absolutely everything a family could need, you could search to the ends of the earth and not find one better than this.
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4: Volkswagen Golf R - from £31,295
Yes, we’d rather drive a Honda Civic Type R, and we said so when they met on these pages. But not only does the Golf R returning today have what only a few years ago would be regarded as unimaginable point-to-point pace for a family hatch, it has been achieved seemingly without compromise in any other area.
It has the same clean looks as a Golf, the same superbly intuitive, functional and attractive interior. In comfort mode its ride is as good as any in the class and if you turn on the cruise at motorway speed, you can forget entirely you’re in a car that even bona fide supercars would struggle to drop on a decent British A or B road.
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4: Volkswagen Golf R - from £31,395
Why? Because power is no good if it can’t be used, and what’s remarkable about the Golf R is not that it has 306bhp (soon to drop to 296bhp thanks to the switch to the WLTP emissions testing regime), but how on the right road almost all that power can be used, almost all of the time.
Essentially it’s the same formula that was applied to the original Golf GTI, but turned up so far, the dial has started a second lap. Over 40 years later, it’s a formula that’s working better than ever.
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3: Ariel Nomad - from £33,000
I think what we love most about the Ariel Nomad is not its mad appearance, certifiable performance (in supercharged form) or back to basics approach to absolutely everything, it is that it is a car no normal car company would ever have created. Imagine the pitch: a totally impractical car that will never set a decent lap time and whose off-road performance is entirely compromised because it drives its rear wheels alone. Where’s the fun in that?
Everywhere as it turns out. Even in its least entertaining environment – the public road - the Nomad is one relentless hoot to drive. On a track, you’ll be too busy going sideways to worry about the fact you’re not quite the quickest thing out there while on the loose. Well here it is out on its own. Literally. There is nothing road legal you can buy from a recognised car manufacturer that can perform like this.
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3: Ariel Nomad - from £33,000
There may not be many places in the UK where you can legally and easily drive the Nomad in the environment it was designed for, but they do exist and people happily travel across Europe to do trackdays at which they won’t have half the fun you’ll be having in the Nomad.
Which is all very good, but its value would still be limited if the car was less than entirely robust and suited to the spectacularly hostile environment in which it begs to be driven. But we know from our own experience that a properly maintained Nomad is pretty much the funniest thing on wheels, but just about unbustable too. Which is why they also cling to values better than any other new car save limited edition supercars.
So not only is it a car you can buy for less than fifty grand, it’s one you can enjoy for years and so long as it’s maintained properly, when you come to sell, you should get almost all your money back too.
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2: Ford Fiesta ST - from £18,995
Hear this: there is not a car on sale that is a more skilled exponent of the ancient and fine art of being better than the sum of its parts. It is merely an iteration of the Ford Fiesta, Britain’s best selling car. It has a 1.5-litre, three cylinder engine at one end and a beam axle at the other. Big deal, eh?
Massive, as it turns out. Everything is in the fine tuning: the way the 197bhp power is delivered, the throaty warble of that little engine, its relentless enthusiasm and the slickness of its gear shift. And all that before you’ve even got to what it does really well. Which is corners, where once more you must look to each end of the car to understand the magic it provides. In this case the optional limited slip differential at the front and super stiff suspension at the back.
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2: Ford Fiesta ST - from £18,995
The combination contrives to provide grip to the axle that always needs it most in front-drive cars, and remove it from the one that always grips and spoils the fun. The result is the best balanced hot hatch on sale and, yes, we include the Civic Type R in that. Here is a Ford Fiesta that loves nothing more than to be lobbed into a corner on a trailing throttle until the back is where you want it to be, whereafter you can land back on the power trusting the diff to find the traction you need to fire down the straight beyond.
No car is perfect and we’d have preferred a little torque steer, a firmer brake pedal with better feel and a less squidgy rim for the wheel – but even taking all this into account what remains is a simply brilliant driver’s car and a practical small hatch into the bargain.
There is one more component of fast Ford heritage that hasn’t been forgotten either: at £18,995, the base ST-1 model undercuts its key rivals from Renault, Peugeot and VW, making not just the best small hatch on sale, but the best value too.
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1: Alpine A110 - from £46,905
This is the bit where I say what a close contest it was, that we sat up all night deliberating over which one of the five should win and in the end had to resort to arm wrestling in order to find our favourite car that less than £50,000 can buy.
But it didn’t happen like that. Before we met in Wales, the Alpine A110 always looked like the runaway winner of this contest, and if anything changed at all that day, it was probably only that it ran a little further.
Funny thing is we don’t often take retro cars to our hearts. When we look back, the cars that make our hearts flutter are always those that, when new, looked only forward. Retro is for those who seek to plunder that past because they lack the imagination to envisage a respectable future.
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1: Alpine A110 - from £46,905
But just occasionally one comes along that does retro so well it reminds why we fell in love with cars in the place, and what we’ve lost on our journey from there to here. Mazda did exactly that with a shameless homage to the original Lotus Elan it called the MX-5 and now, almost 30 years later, Alpine has done it again.
What is so refreshing about the A110 is that it recognises that so much of what we think makes a great sporting car actually gets in the way. All that performance we can’t use, but which requires huge brakes and beefed up suspension to control, and the unavoidable rise in unsprung mass that goes with it.
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1: Alpine A110 - from £46,905
All that grip we rarely exploit, brought by massive wheels and tyres that destroy feel and mean we never get to experience a car on the limit, because that limit is too damn far away to be of any sensible value to a sane driver on a public road.
It’s also what I call a car park car, namely one that feels so intrinsically right from the moment you start to move that you know you’re driving something pretty special even before you’re out of the car park. And I’m not kidding: you need neither go far nor fast to feel how supple is the suspension, how well it steers, or how compact and light it seems. In short, it just feels right.
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1: Alpine A110 - from £46,905
But when you do drive it the way its car-crazed designers intended, it provides a experience that, in certain real and important ways, is more involving than you’d find in any number of bona fide supercars. For this is driving in the purest form you’ll find in 2018, but without resorting to mad impracticalilties. And yes, the fact that it’s quiet and comfortable enough to use every day is a massive real world point in its favour too.
The Alpine A110 is, by any standard you care to name, a simply outstanding driver’s car. That a car of such rare qualities is available for under £50,000 (for the entry level ‘Pure’ version) is something we will lose no opportunity to celebrate.
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