Buy a 'future classic', Speculate to accumulate

A grand won't get you rolling in a trouble-free limo, but it could quite easily get you a perky little performer and one which, if treated with love and attention, could perhaps make you a pound or two come resale time. That's unlikely, obviously, but at the same time, they just don't make cars like they used to, so you'll find endless and long-forgotten thrills with a shrewdly bought old banger.

Something allegedly 'hot' is what you're after, so that you've got enough poke to make the most of enjoying motoring from an age when steering feel actually existed and 'airbags' was merely a crude colloquialism.

So we guess you'll want advice? Ok then, avoid anything advertised as an 'ideal first car,' though given that much in this price range will be French and built by semi-interested men through the thick fog of a thousand Gitanes, you'll be under the bonnet a lot anyway. Accept it and enjoy. Really though, buy a MkII Golf GTI or a late 1980's Escort XR3i for a few hundred quid and use the rest buying a jack and some overalls, so you at least look the part on your back in the yard.

Mark Nichol