If you promised yourself a £60,000 Jaguar F-Type when the model was launched back in 2013 but couldn’t stretch to it, then top marks for waiting.
Today, those first cars start from £32,000 for tidy V6 convertibles with around 45,000 miles and good histories.
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That’s a 330bhp supercharged V6, remember, capable of 0-62mph in a shade over 5sec.
Look hard and you might find an example of the more powerful 370bhp S version, such as the 2014-reg coupé with 57,000 miles we saw, for £32,000 on the nose. No mention of its service history, though.
A standard F-Type is enticing enough (sports suspension, partial leather, steering wheel paddles), but with its hooligan sports exhaust, adaptive suspension and mechanical limited-slip diff, not to mention its extra power, the S version is worth its approximately £2000 premium.
Dig deeper and there’s the 481bhp 5.0-litre V8 S convertible, with an electronic diff, from around £39,000 for the first 2013-registered cars. The sportier coupé version, launched in 2014, was known as the R and got a 535bhp V8. Prices start from around £46,000 for these.
Feeling brave? At the time of writing, eBay was showing a 2016-reg R coupé category N write-off with 4000 miles for just £29,995. Mind you, although a cat N is one that has not sustained structural damage, it may require work on its expensive electronics and safety kit – so perhaps not such a bargain after all.
Out of the box, the F-Type is rear-wheel drive with a ZF eight-speed automatic complete with paddle shifters. A ZF six-speed manual became available on V6 cars from 2015 but is rare. The same year, all-wheel drive became an option on V6 S models. Today, prices for these start at around £40,000.
