Allun Davies is a car buying novice and depreciation is a worry, what should he do? Has £10,000 to spend.
£10,000 is a lot to spend if Allun wants to dodge depreciation unless he is willing to be brave. There are two ways to do this. The biggest motoring expense is always depreciation so the car for the head ought to be one that should lose the least amount of value. This is the Bangernomics option, a cheap and most importantly reliable car. A Toyota Corolla would be perfect and for £1000 he could buy a 2002 1.6 VVTi with just 77K miles. It is unlikely to lose any value over a year or so.
After the Bangernomic option, there is the investment opportunity. This means that Allun has to find a vehicle that is guaranteed to go up in value so that he can effectively laugh in the face of depreciation. So we need to steer Allun in the direction of an affordable but desirable car. The Mercedes-Benz C32 AMG is effectively a hand built performance version of the standard car. I came across a 2003 estate model advertised at £5500 which had a full history. Often these sell for more and it is likely to appreciate in the coming years.
Read Car Choice in the iPaper Weekend section every Saturday.
