Want a bargain V8? Here are 10 great used cars for around £10k

There's a certain charm to the TVR Chimaera. The design is soft and quiet, and the interior on this one even looks about as comfortable as laying on top of a woolly Tibetan Mastiff. But it'll do the 'performance' thing too, thanks to its 275bhp 4.0-litre V8 and circa 1.1-tonne weight. Lovely.

This week’s roundup can be used as a display of how versatile eight cylinders can be. If you don’t want a loud British roadster, how about a great big German waft machine to rack up the miles? Here’s a Porsche Cayenne Turbo with just 70k on the clock and a fair bit of change left to spare from this week’s budget. 

The Daimler won’t clip apexes like the Chimaera or settle into a motorway blast as delicately as the Cayenne, but what it will do is turn you into the coolest resident in your neighbourhood. This one’s the Long Wheelbase too, so rear-seat passengers can enjoy their tea and crumpets in as much space as a Singapore Airlines first-class cabin.

Current bidding for this W204-generation C63 sits at just over £10,000 with less than a day to run. Should you manage to put in a successful offer for that sort of price, it represents a real coup for one of the most flamboyant super saloons of its time. And one with a hell of a vocal cord too, courtesy of AMG’s 6.2-litre sledgehammer. The downshifts will never wear thin.

The BMW 840Ci is still a lesson on how to style a car: pop-up headlights and quad-exhausts sitting on opposite ends of a stretched coupe shape. Beneath the long bonnet is a 4.4-litre V8 that’s good for 286bhp. More than enough for the sporty four-seat GT to do its business.

Or here’s a triple black, Hemi V8-powered Chrysler 300C for you to live out your Mafioso fantasies with. That engine churns out a seismic 425bhp worth of pure American combustion, which should rattle up enough excitement to help you forget about the cabin, which is comparably well-equipped to an Antarctic shelter.

The most powerful car this week is a 510bhp supercharged navy blue land yacht from Solihull. A handsome land yacht, it must be said, what with its square exhaust tips and fancy alloys. This is the Autobiography version too, so it’s about as posh as the Beckhams.

Is this iteration of the XJR the most on-brand car Jaguar made in the Noughties? Quite possibly. That hunkered-down, perfectly straight body sits on the five-spoke alloys like it’s ready to cause trouble. And don’t forget: this thing has as much power as a Ferrari 360. Sheesh.

Here’s a sumptuous GranTurismo up for exactly £10,000, though the bidding will continue for another few days so we’re expecting that number to shoot up. But, like the earlier C63, we’d watch this one closely because you may just land yourself a bargain if it flies under enough radars.

You’ll need to do some negotiating if you want to get this Dodge Charger down, but what a prospect it is for a weekend toy. Sure, the lime green paint and black accenting aren’t the most attractive combo, but the purpose of a Charger is to generate noise, smoke and lots of attention. In other words, the perfect wildcard.