Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, Class on a budget

Like all bona fide classic cars, giving legitimate pricing guidance is a minefield of age, condition, specification, service history and colour. But, Rollers tend to be well looked after by their well-to-do/scrap dealing owners, so finding a decent one that's been cared for isn't too difficult. We easily found a few with first registration dates ranging through three decades from the '60s to the '80s, each looking pukka, each hovering around the £5k mark, and none with a bubble of rust or cracked leather chair in sight.

The very reasonable prices may be because the Silver Shadow remains the biggest volume Rolls-Royce ever made, with tens of thousands produced in a few body styles at the maker's Crewe factory between 1965 and 1980. Like its predecessor the Silver Cloud, the Shadow was the very epitome of English civility and class, though intriguingly it owed much of its unwavering ability to waft to the French - the self-levelling suspension was licensed to Rolls by Citroen. You can still pay five figures for a splendid one, but a budget well below £5,000 can get you a Roller from the era when they weren't just fancy BMWs. Timeless sophistication for city car money. Watch out for running costs though - spare parts aren't cheap, and don't even ask about mpg.

Mark Nichol