It’s a constant source of amazement that the company that trots out the Micra and Pulsar is the same one that fashions the mighty GT-R. It arrived in the UK in 2009 costing from £57,000, but today’s updated and more powerful version starts at £82,000.  All this makes the 50,000-mile 2009 Black Edition we saw for sale at £32,990 very tempting indeed. It has every service accounted for, most performed by leading specialist Litchfield. Being a Black Edition, it has powered seats, a Bose sound system and automatic headlights. Any worries about how it’s been driven can be addressed by taking it to an official Nissan GT-R performance centre, which, for about £60, will interrogate its software. Within a few days, its darkest secrets will drop through your letterbox.  Its solid maintenance record suggests all should be well, but while we’re waiting for the performance report, we’d be keen to check for flywheel shaft bearing noise emanating from the bell housing behind the engine. The thought that it’ll need new cam chains in 20,000 miles at a cost of around £2000 will occupy our attention, too.   We won’t be unduly worried about transmission noise on the test drive – “they all do that, sir” – but we will check that the dampers aren’t weeping and that the inner shoulders of the tyres aren’t worn.  The paint chips easily, in turn causing rust spots to erupt, but the biggest concern regarding bodywork, in addition to crash repairs, is that the bonnet isn’t misaligned. It’s a single-use, pedestrian-friendly item that costs up to £10,000 to replace. It doesn’t seem much for a 2003 DB7 V12 with a claimed full history. The seller says it’s running beautifully, but we’d check for misfires, frail hoses, gearbox coolant leaks, worn brakes, rust, a malfunctioning air-con system and sticky power windows. Pick-ups weren’t always overblown Dodge RAM lookie-likies. The Sierra-based P100, launched in 1987, was a more modest and honest affair. This one’s a 1992 K-reg with 98,000 miles that seems to have avoided hard labour and appears in fine condition.  Where does a keen driver on a budget find their Lotus kicks? We found this 80k-mile 1995 Elan S2. No word on its history, but check for faulty injectors causing rough running, the glassfibre body for repairs, a warped hood frame and the underside for scrapes.  The 1 Series M Coupé was welcomed with open arms, not least by Autocar, which praised its back-to-basics feel, epic performance and overall handling feel. Our find is a BMW approved used 2012/12-reg manual with 60,000 miles. Auction watch  Proof that auctions are the place to go if you want a bargain is this 150,000-mile, 1988-reg 928 that went for £9056. A bargain? Not if it’s a bucket, but this one has just been serviced, so there’s another stamp to add to the 13 already in the file. It had an engine rebuild in 1997 and since then has had £8000 spent on it, with an aluminium radiator among the new parts. We’d have been keen to check that belts, tensioner and water pump had been changed at intervals, that the gearbox isn’t leaking and that the underside and window surrounds are free of rust.  Future classic The last Beetle scuttled out of the Mexico factory recently, making this a good time to comb the family album for promising derivatives. And lo, we found this: the 2.0 TSI Turbo with 197bhp and an impressive 206lb ft at just 1700rpm. Check out those 19in Tornado alloys, rear spoiler, privacy glass and red, uprated brake calipers. True, it’s a stretch to imagine it might one day achieve real classic status, but with looks, rarity and performance on its side, it must stand a fairly good chance. And they don’t make them any more… Clash of the classifieds Brief: Find me a bona fide V8 muscle car for £12k. Porsche 928 S4, £10,250 Max Adams: My Mercedes might not be American, but it has all the correct ingredients of a proper muscle car: a huge 6.2-litre V8 in an equally big vehicle, rear-wheel drive and a fantastic soundtrack when you peel away from a stop light. What are your wheels of choice, Mark?  Mark Pearson: A wonderful bahnstorming 1987 Porsche 928 S4, complete with that delightful 5.0-litre V8, wonderful balance and, oh, those polar moments of inertia! It’s had £25k spent on it and yet is just £10k to buy. Yours is a taxi, right?  MA: Traditional muscle cars are based on saloons, so my E-Class fits the brief. And, of course, they’ve had to spend so much keeping your old crate going because it’s two decades older than mine – which also explains the 200bhp deficit…  MP: Mine oozes style, though, and no one complained that it lacked for power back then – it’ll see off 0-60mph in six seconds. It has perfect weight distribution and much else besides, and I should think its price can only go one way.  MA: The E-Class wasn’t regarded as a minger at the time either, but this AMG has the subtlety to surprise the uninitiated.  MP: Too much of a
Origin: Buy them before we do: second-hand picks for 6 September