Top Gear's Top 9: cheap cars with 12-cylinders

The most controversial 7 Series ever for its odd styling and complicated first-gen iDrive computer. The flagship 6.0-litre V12 was a hugely expensive car in its day and is thus pretty rare. Nowadays you can buy a leggy one for around £7,000. Whether you should is dictated by how brave you’re feeling… Unless it’s “very”, close this gallery right now to avoid temptation. 

Want your 12-cylinders arranged in a W-shape, rather than a V? You’ll want an A8 (or a Phaeton, if you can find one). High-milers can cost less than a new Dacia Sandero – a ludicrously small sum of money for a huge all-wheel drive 12-cylinder limo with a load of clever (even by today’s standards) tech onboard. If you’re lucky most of it might still work. 

Would Sir or Madam like their 12-cylinders in a long-wheelbase limo or a continent-crushing GT? Merc gives you the option, with both leggy V12 S-Classes and CLs available for south of £10,000. As with every single car on this list, the potential for financial ruination is high. We accept no responsibility for your questionable life choices. 

Ok maybe not every car. If there’s one car on this list that might actually, y’know, work (and continue to do so), it’s this. The uniquely, brilliantly weird Toyota Century is the only Japanese production car ever fitted with a V12 engine – a 5.0-litre designed and built by Toyota expressly for its flagship. It’s got curtains and everything. 

Jag bowed out of the V12 game in 1997, having first fitted a 12-cylinder engine to a road car (the E-Type) in the Seventies. The cheapest way into a Jag V12 is a XJ of some description, be it an actual Jag or a Daimler, but you might find an XJS if you’re lucky/quite mad. 

Yes, you really can get a Bentley Continental GT OR a Flying Spur for £15,000. Granted they’ll have had dozens of previous owners, probably been quite poorly looked after and fitted with hideous aftermarket alloys, but still. What could possibly go wrong? Oh yeah, LITERALLY EVERYTHING. 

A DB7 is the cheapest way into an Aston Martin, with cars (autos, manuals are pricier) available from under £20,000. That said, find an extra £5,000 and you could have a DB9. Something nice to look at while you wait for the RAC man, at any rate. Spend more, get one that’s been well looked-after. 

The R129-era SL is from a time in Merc’s history when it was comprehensively over-engineering all its cars (you can get one of those with a V12 for around £25,000). The R230 SL that replaced it…isn’t. Proceed with extreme caution. 

How’s this for a wildcard. An SUV with a 12-cylinder DIESEL engine. The Q7 V12 TDI is the only production car ever fitted with a 12-cylinder oil-burner – and so it will remain. Probably the rarest car on this list. If we were in charge of the Suez Canal we’d be buying every one we could find. A couple of V12 Q7s could’ve unstuck the Ever Given in mere minutes.