Advice: Used cars - best buys

To lose £55,000 in little over a year would get you fired from most UK financial institutions. It's like buying a new Porsche 911, running it for 12 months then pushing it off a cliff. But the super-rich live in a different world and, if they can afford the quarter-million Rolls, they can certainly afford the depreciation that entails.

Besides, it's really quite a decent first-year retained value, in percentage terms. Just look at all those Mondeos being sold nearly new for less than two-thirds of new list. The Rolls loses lots because it costs lots in the first place; by most standards, it's still insanely expensive.

We followed one in Geneva and, even there, where the super-rich hail a taxi if the pavement isn't diamond-studded, the Rolls turned heads and raised Versace sunglasses. It's opulent, brash, bold and beguiling, proudly British and desirable in a way the mundane Maybach can never hope to be. £55k lost? There are places in America charging that for you to 'live the life of a celebrity'  you'll do that in a Phantom each and every time you drive it.

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