10 Fast Diesel Cars For Under £10,000

Diesel may have fallen out of favour with the public, and is being slowly regulated out of cities across the UK, but for many of us, it’s still a tempting option. After all, fuel’s still quite expensive, so fewer trips to the pump can only be a good thing.

While diesel cars have never exactly been known for providing much raw excitement, the fuel’s heyday in the 2000s and early 2010s saw more than a few attempts to combine some pace and pizazz with the usual frugality and torque of a DERV. The fuel’s fall from grace during the last few years means plenty of these are now temptingly cheap, so we’ve rounded up 10 of our favourite used oil burners for less than £10,000 that don’t necessarily mean sacrificing speed, style or sportiness.

Volvo C30 D5 Volvo C30

Volvo made its last diesel car ever this year, but once, the fuel underpinned its entire range. That was perhaps best exemplified by the company’s 2.4-litre ‘D5’ five-cylinder engine. At one point, it was available in pretty much everything with a Volvo badge (okay, not the trucks), but our favourite installation of it was in the handsome C30.

Sharing underpinnings with the Ford Focus – never a bad thing – the C30 D5 made 177bhp and 295lb ft of torque, meaning 62mph was dealt with handily in 7.7 seconds and the top speed was 140mph. You could even get a dealer-fit Polestar upgrade that upped power to 202bhp, although good luck finding one. Tidy D5s can be picked up for as little as £3,500.

Alfa Romeo Brera 2.4 JTDM Alfa Romeo Brera

Craving a stylish yet reasonably practical hatchback-coupe thing with five-cylinder diesel power, but like your meatballs served with spaghetti and parmesan rather than mashed potato and lingonberry jam? The Alfa Romeo Brera has your weirdly specific desires covered.

Available from launch with a 2.4-litre JTDM five-cylinder, it initially produced 197bhp and 295lb ft. A 2008 update took power to 207bhp, making for 0-62mph in 7.6 seconds and 144mph. Granted, the Brera was never the most dynamically brilliant coupe, and it’s obviously a used Alfa, so it comes with a health warning attached. But when you walk outside and see that utterly gorgeous Giugiaro-penned body, will you really care? You can get the Brera 2.4 for around £3,000, but we’d recommend spending a little more if you can.

Skoda Octavia vRS TDI Skoda Octavia vRS

We could have gone for a VW Golf GTD here, but there’s just something more appealing about its Czech relative, the Skoda Octavia vRS TDI. Both the second and third generations of the warmed-over Octavia have been available with 2.0-litre diesel four-pots, the former making 170bhp and 258lb ft, and the newer car getting 181bhp and 280lb ft.

There’s no shortage of choice, either: liftback saloons or practical estates, manuals or DSG autos – the later car even had a four-wheel drive option. Better yet, if you can find one from roughly mid-2015 onwards, they became Euro 6 compliant, meaning they don’t get slapped with a ULEZ charge for driving into London. Budget from as little as £2,000 for a second-gen car, and from around £4,500 for a third-gen.

Ford Focus ST TDCi Ford Focus ST Estate

Many eyebrows were raised when Ford announced that its third-gen Focus ST would be available as a diesel alongside a snorty petrol version (although Ford had done a diesel ST before, the Mondeo ST TDCi). It was nevertheless a keen engine – a 2.0-litre four-cylinder making 182bhp and 295lb ft. In the manual hatch, this meant 0-62mph in 7.8 seconds and 135mph.

As well as a five-door hatch, you could also get it as an estate, and like all Focuses (Foci?) it handled sweetly. Best of all, every ST TDCi was built to Euro 6 standards, making them fully ULEZ-compliant. Nowadays, you can get a hatch from around £6,000, with the rarer estate starting at around £8,000.

BMW 640d BMW 640d Convertible

BMW was arguably the leader of the quick diesel genre when it was at its peak, so there’s no shortage of Bavarian metal to choose from here. We’ve gone for the F12 6-series in 640d guise because it combines a frugal yet powerful engine with a very pretty Beemer (remember those?). Said engine is a 3.0-litre, twin-turbocharged straight-six sending 308bhp and 465lb ft to the rear wheels, good for 0-62mph in 5.1 seconds and a limited 155mph top speed.

You could get a coupe, a convertible, or our personal favourite, the swoopy four-door Gran Coupe. It’s a huge amount of car for the money, with sports-car-worrying pace and an interior that still feels modern today, and high-mileage examples start at around £6,000. Find a couple more grand for a convertible or Gran Coupe.

Alpina D3 E90 Alpina D3

What if you want that hot BMW diesel recipe, but you’re just too cool to drive an actual BMW? As always, you can rely on Alpina, Beemer’s cool cousin that moved to a loft apartment in the city and got really into wine and spoken-word jazz. The tuning firm has a long history of fast diesels, but because of their rarity and cult status, the only one that falls under budget is the original D3, based on the E90 3-series.

Powered by a 2.0-litre four-cylinder with not one but two turbochargers, the OG D3 made 211bhp and 332lb ft. The vital statistics were 0-62mph in 6.9 seconds and 152mph. The vast majority were saloons, but if you’re lucky you might track down a Touring or coupe. Whatever you get, though, you’ll be getting one of the ultimate ‘IYKYK’ cars, with some excellent alloy wheels thrown in. They can be picked up from around £5,000, but be aware that anything in our budget is likely to have covered plenty of miles.

Jaguar XJ 3.0d Jaguar XJ

The final iteration of the Jaguar XJ is quite possibly one of the most underrated cars of the century so far. A stunning Ian Callum-designed body, a lightweight aluminium chassis, a spacious interior that still feels special 15 years later, and a good range of grunty engines. It was the big limo of choice for those who liked driving, and looking good doing it, even if that meant sacrificing a bit of tech and build quality.

Obviously, it’s the diesel we’re interested in. It’s a Ford-designed 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6 (a development of the same one Jeremy Clarkson took around the Nürburgring), which in this guise made 271bhp and 443lb ft. That meant 62mph in 6.2 seconds and a 155mph top speed. You can get usable ones from as little as £6,000, and if you’re prepared to push toward the top end of our £10k budget, you might just find a facelifted car with 295bhp and 516lb ft.

Audi A6 3.0 BiTDI Audi A6 Allroad

Alfas, Jags, tuned Beemers… a lot of this list so far probably needs a big ‘APPROACH WITH CAUTION’ sticker on it. So how about a nice, sensible Audi A6? The fourth generation of Audi’s exec saloon and estate (the C7, for chassis code nerds) was available with a 3.0-litre twin-turbo diesel V6, producing a healthy 308bhp and 479lb ft. Top speed was the expected 155mph, while 62mph was dusted off in 5.3 seconds.

Naturally, a big diesel A6 is never going to particularly raise your pulse in the corners, but as a rapid, refined, comfy cruiser, it’s hard to beat. There was plenty of choice too, with the engine available in the saloon, Avant, and most appealingly, the jacked-up Allroad. You could even get it in the rakish A7 if you couldn’t bring yourself to look that much like a successful Bavarian photocopier sales rep, but that’s naturally a pricier choice. Saloons and Avants, though, start at around £7,000.

Mercedes-Benz C350 CDI Mercedes-Benz C-Class Estate

All the six-cylinder cars we’ve had on this list so far have been quite big and bargey. What if you drop a torquey diesel V6 into something a little more compact? You get the Mercedes C350 CDI, which in its later years pushed 261bhp and 457lb ft to its rear wheels from a 3.0-litre V6. 0-62mph happens in 6.0 seconds, and the top speed is – you guessed it – 155mph.

Like the A6, it’s not going to be a dynamic revelation, but it is going to be a nice, strong cruiser, and with that big lump of torque going to the rear wheels of a reasonably small saloon, we suspect there might be the possibility of some shenanigans. Choose between a saloon or an estate, and expect to pay around £4,500 for one of the later, more powerful cars. Earlier examples with 228bhp are naturally a bit less.

Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI Volkswagen Touareg R50

Look, we can’t with a clean conscience earnestly suggest that you go out and spend your own hard-earned money on a Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI. It will almost definitely ruin your life. But the list is just fast diesels for under £10k – it doesn’t say anything about liability to cause you your very own 2008-level financial crisis.

If you are brave, stupid or drunk enough to buy an enormous SUV powered by the only road-going diesel V10 ever, here’s what your £8,000-plus is getting you: 5.0 litres, two turbos, 308bhp and 553lb ft of torque. That takes this 2.7-tonne monument to excess to 62mph in 7.8 seconds and on to 140mph. That’s unless you can track down an even rarer R50 version, which took power to 345bhp and torque to a planet-stopping 627lb ft, dropping acceleration to 6.6 seconds.

It’s a truly ludicrous car and one that’s not even remotely efficient – VW’s own figures put the MPG at a measly 22. For the love of everything, just don’t do it. But if you do, let us know how it goes.