As we’re now heading back towards the time of the year where the fun cars are tucked away and thoughts of winter tyres and gritters abound, I thought I would have another look through the classifieds and see if this is the best time of year to pick up a 4×4 bargain. Unlike the convertibles selection, these don’t need to be interesting, but it would be nice if they were. We are however going to stick to the same pricing criteria of £1000, £5000 and £10,000 and the cars still have to be located in Scotland.
Under £1,000
This was always going to be a difficult find and the other guys at TT didn’t think a 4×4 could be found at such a low price. They were wrong and here is the car in question, a 1994 Range Rover Vogue SE. Yes, it might be an MOT failure in its current state, but it’s got all the parts needed to make it right and it’s only sitting at £460 as I write this!
I never claimed it was a looker, and it does have a few spots of rust showing though, but it’s still cooler than a Dacia Duster. If you’ve got the skills and the time then it could be the ideal run-around for winter 2015 if the weather turns nasty. Is anyone feeling brave enough???
Under £5000
In the absence of any decent Toyota Landcruisers in this price range meant we had to turn to another indestructible beast from Japan – the mighty Mitsubishi Pajero. This example looks to be in pretty decent condition and has some of the nicest seats you will find in any car (built in Japan in the 1990s, excluding sports cars and pretty much anything produced by people with actual sight). It’s a 2000 Pajero DiD with 7 seats for £4,495 and it does come with some tax and MOT, although this does expire before the winter. Since it’s being sold by a dealer then you should be able to get them to refresh the MOT before you buy it and then you’ll be laughing all the way into next spring.
A seven seater Pajero isn’t exactly a looker and the 3.2l diesel is unlikely to be the most efficient method of moving a huge 4×4 around, but if you need to move a group of people around no matter what the weather then it’s an ideal tool for the job. For those of you that like to tow your house around with you it’s even setup and ready for you. I’d prefer a Pajero Evo but I couldn’t find any for sale in Scotland at the moment – perhaps the owners are holding out for winter prices.
Under £10,000
The obvious choice in this category was to go for a v8 Range Rover and to hell with fuel economy, running costs and reliability. There were two problems with this: there are only a couple for sale and they will make you look like the local medicine man. The less obvious choice was to go for a VW Touareg, this model a 2.5 Tdi Altitude. The “Altitude” part of the name is clearly comes from the gap between the wheels and the arches where you could probably fit an original mini!
For some reason I’ve always quite liked these cars and even though this one might have a rather uninteresting 2.5l diesel engine, I think it’s still a cracking car to get you thought the winter months. Granted the wheels and tyres aren’t exactly setup for snow but this something you could budget for if you manage to squeeze the owner down in price.
Money no object?
After spending a few hours scouring the internet for Unimogs for sale in Scotland I finally gave up and went with the second best thing and its little bro, the Geländewagen. Since we don’t live in a Gulf State there weren’t any V12 G-Wagens showing up for sale locally, we did however manage to find this G350 CDI BlueTEC for sale. It’s a matter of opinion whether you think this is cooler than a Range Rover or a Defender but it certainly going to get you though the snow and people certainly aren’t going to miss you when you drive by (unless it is actually during a snow storm).
At £80,000 it’s not exactly a bargain and there are probably better drivers cars available that will do just as good a job for 99% of people, but who wants to be sensible?
Can you find any better examples for these prices or would you rather just stick a set of winter tyres on your front wheel drive hatchback? Tell us over on the forums.
