Advice: Used cars - best buys

To understand why MG Rover is no more, study the case of the SV. Italian design? Check. V8 engine? Check. Racy carbon fibre construction? Check. Porsche 911 opponent on a budget? Err. Catwalk beauty? Ah. Sublime drivers car? Now then. Like so many aspects of MG Rover, it could have worked, had certain facets not been greedy and misguided.

To charge £65,000 for a rebodied Qvale powered by a Ford Mustang engine that felt like a very good kit car rather than like the very good supercars it was willed to rivals, was lunacy. There were reasons; the chassis, it is said, cost the supplying company more to produce than a certain other Italian supercar they also supplied. And each car really was hand-built, probably by some of the same workers who kept the Mini ticking over far beyond its years. Tears, first of hope, then of despair, have probably fallen gently on each one.

But the used market has no time for sentimentality. This, or a Porsche 911? You're having a laugh. In goes the knife, out comes an SV barely two years old that's worth less than £45k. Cruel. But so few were produced that, chances are, some of the used SVs on the market will be ex-Phoenix Four cars. And they can certainly afford the hit.

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