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Buying Guides: The $10k dilemma

11 August, 2017

 


 

Following on from our team nominating what they’d be buying with $5,000 in their pockets, we generously doubled the hypothetical budget and sent the team on a mission. What would they be buying for $10,000?


Lachlan Jones — NZ Classic Car
Volkswagen Golf GTI (MK5): We had a MK5 GTI as a family car for a fair while that did everything we asked of it and more. The DSG gearbox was a revelation at the time (in fact, very little is different from the unit VW use in the MK7 GTI and R) and with 200hp out of the box, it was quick enough, too (an extra $1,000 for a remap will see the GTI up to 250-odd-hp quite easily). With a stiffer chassis and significantly reduced understeer from the lacklustre MK4, the MK5 GTI was a game changer for not just VW but what we’ve come to expect of the modern hot hatch.


Jaden Martin — NZ Performance Car
Honda Civic Type R (EK9): Coming in at ⅙ of the price that the latest incarnation commands, the EK9 still sits as the ultimate cheap hot hatch in my eyes. It still has that full road feel that more modern cars seem to lose in the name of comfort and its 1.6-litre screaming heart packs enough of a punch to chuck a smile on your face. They are probably the most attractive of the Civic Type R family, too.


Ashley Webb — NZ Classic Car
A Jaguar XJS. They’re on their way to becoming quite collectable and there is no denying they look fantastic.


Todd Wylie — NZV8
A WH Holden Statesman is a whole lot of car for the money, so much car that it’d be hard to beat in terms of luxury, presence and performance in my mind. I’ve owned a Statesman before, and still can’t understand why they’re cheaper than a standard wheelbase Calais or similar. If you’re in the market for a V8-powered family hauler, make sure to take a look, as you won’t be disappointed.


Connal Grace — NZV8
I could opt for a manual 308-powered VK Commodore, or an XE Falcon panelvan, but I’m going to go with the Nissan Stagea RS Four — manual, of course. The factory RB25DET turbo six will make over 300hp with minor modification, and with a gratuitous boot area, this is the perfect life-proof vehicle.

 

Janspeed recreates the Jaguar sports car

29 September, 2026

Thankfully, a few of these cars made it to New Zealand, the odd one being imported from the UK over the years. However, the 1988 British Racing Green example owned by Bill Slater in Upper Hutt was originally sold as a standard car but converted using the full Janspeed kit by the first owner within a couple of years of buying it.
Bill has owned a few other Jaguars. In fact, after he sold his Jaguar XJ12 in 2018, he found himself pining for another and, when the XJ-S came up for sale, he could not resist it. Having just sold the V12, he was not expecting much from the six-cylinder car other than more reliability and it being cheaper to keep on the road. Naturally, he had heard of the influence Janspeed had on the marque, but it was not until he took the car for a test drive that he became aware of just how superior it was to the car he had just sold. The price of a second-hand Janspeed XJ-S and that of a standard 3.6 XJ-S is quite comparable, making the Janspeed version an incredible bargain, even more so in comparison with other performance classic cars — or even modern cars, for that matter — which cost far more bucks for the bang.

The writing on the wall

25 September, 2026

Deven, a digital content producer in his 20s, says it was the rear-drive Nissan and Toyota drift cars that fired his imagination in his not-so-distant youth and soon had him wanting one of his own. However, like most of us, he had to start in something less glamorous – in his case, a 1997 Mitsubishi Galant. After that, he bought a four-litre V8 1991 Toyota Soarer, a big change from the Mitsubishi.
“It was my daily driver, and it wasn’t that bad to run back when petrol was affordable,” he says.
When he got fed up with filling it up, Deven bought a 1989 Ford Laser sedan, a 1.3-litre five-speed manual, to be his daily driver. It’s in very good condition, bought from a careful older driver, and he still runs it – although he will occasionally also drive the latest in a series of Nissan Laurel sedans. His current one, from 1993, has done the lowest number of kilometres yet, at 183,000. It has the single-cam version of the engine in his Skyline.
“I’ve had four different versions of that car. It was just a car I always liked. It’s really comfortable, quite luxurious. I bought it from a 90-year-old in Hamilton. It’s in mint condition, and everything is standard.”