Get ready to swoon over these sub-£50k classics we found this week

RS2 Avants are becoming increasingly hard to find, given just 180 right-hand drive examples were ever made. It was not only the first Audi to don the famous ‘RS’ badge, but also the instigator of arguably the greatest family of fast estates ever. And despite its 30-year age, the 311bhp inline-five still has more than enough punch to worry most modern supercars. Proper sleeper, this.

No, you won’t be getting the full-bore GT-R for this price: those are worth three arms, six legs and eight sets of polished teeth nowadays. But you can land yourself a clean GT-T instead. This one’s even finished in the sought-after ‘Midnight Purple 3’ paint, and has had its RB25 engine remapped to send around 550bhp to the flywheel.

13 years before that GT-T left the factory, Ford sent this Sierra RS Cosworth out to exterminate Britain’s Vauxhall Nova infestation. It has since racked up just under 90,000 miles on the clock, with its previous owner(s) likely spending most of those gurning at the high-pitched induction flutters while Sun Is Shining by Bob Marley plays off the cassette reader.

It’s all getting a bit… frantic, wouldn’t you say? So let’s tone it down a notch and appreciate a much classier approach in this Bentley Continental R. As the ad states this was, back in 1997, the most expensive production car in the world. No surprises there: just look at the interior housed within the five-acre-long body.

Moment of sensible thinking over, could we interest you in a not-at-all classy Dodge Charger in full Dukes of Hazzard spec? Its tiny three-speed automatic transmission means you’re almost always coaxing revs out of the massive 5.2-litre V8, which will probably put a massive smile on the faces of environmentalists. Or not.

And not just any Evo either: this is a one-of-26 ‘Extreme’ edition, built to commemorate Tommi Makinen’s hold over the world of rallying at the time. He used an evolution of, er, the Evolution to win every championship between 1996 and 1999, with part of that magic engineered directly into this car. Just look at the amount of funky blue bits under the bonnet!

Want an Esprit S2 that’s just been through a two-year rebuild and now looks in better condition than the dining table at Buckingham Palace? Such a thing can be found by clicking here. Aside from the gorgeous black and gold colour scheme, its 2.2-litre inline-four engine has completed less than a thousand miles since its rebuild. As if we weren’t jealous enough already…

Our third and final Japanese cult classic is the Subaru Impreza P1, a fine example of which is listed here for a fiver under this week’s budget. Just 1,000 P1s were ever built, and though Subaru has created around five million special edition Imprezas over the years, this continues to rank among the favourites.

As far as Frankenstein projects go, how does an 800kg BMW E30 chassis with a 2.3-litre Cosworth engine and bits from an old Merc sound? It's fantastically wild, we’d agree. Despite the 223k-mile odometer readout, it seems this project has been subject to constant development over the years, which probably explains why its owners are commanding such a high fee for it.