The Best 00s Cars

Despite all the fretting about the Millennium Bug, it’s technology that fuels the very best 00s cars. This was the decade when tech worked with rather than in place of driver engagement, when it was complex but not too complicated to consign an otherwise fine car to the scrapyard 10 years down the line.

For your delight and, probably, delectation, we’ve assembled our favourite 00s cars, including the best 00s, coupes, convertibles, city cars, saloons, sports cars, supercars and more.

Best 00s Coupé

BMW E46 M3

• Average Price Range: £25,000-45,000
  Production Run: 2000-2006
  Number Built: 85,766
  Horsepower: 338-360bhp
  Top Speed/0-60mph: 155mph/5.1

Let’s start with perfection, because in a nutshell that is exactly what the E46 M3 is. Built at the absolute sweet spot when analogue feel was assisted rather than swamped by technology, the E46 M3 is absolutely everything you want in a sporting car.

Naysayers may sniff at the badge, at the apparent absence of indicators, but drive a good E46 – and finding one of those is harder than it should be – and you get a perfectly balanced, sweet-revving, brutally quick car that seems to dance on the tarmac. It’s the kind of car that needs skill and proper nerve to drive really well, but it is also sufficiently surefooted and safe to make even semi-capable drivers seem godly.

Bentley Continental GT

• Average Price Range: £12,000-35,000
• Production Run: 2003-2011
• Number Built: c.30,000
• Horsepower: 552-621bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 198mph/4.7secs

Bentley’s renaissance began with the Turbo R but really found its feet with the Conti GT. It cleverly took the best from the VAG parts bin and blended it with traditional Bentley cues, pleasing traditionalists and attracting new buyers like a magnet.

Big, brutal and possessed of a technologically ingenious 550bhp W12, the GT did what it did in a way that no other GT could quite manage. By comparison, other bespoke hand-built coupes seemed fragile, a bit lilly-livered and unsure of themselves. There was nothing unconfident about the Bentley. This was a car that shouted its presence and was perfectly happy to fight anyone who disagreed.

Best 00s Sports Car

Porsche 996

• Average Price Range: £11,000-130,000
• Production Run: 1997-2006
• Number Built: 175,000
• Horsepower: 296-483bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 171-198 mph/3-8.5.4secs

In the 1990s, Porsche was in serious trouble. All attempts to broaden its range away from the 911 had come to largely nought, and the air-cooled icon itself was on borrowed time. But when crisis looms is often when inspiration calls.

Cue the 996. The profile was broadly familiar, but in all other respects, the 996 was proper blue sky thinking. In came a water-cooled flat six, out went the sense of brilliance, but with compromise, replaced instead with simply brilliance. The 996 was, and still is, the sports car that delivers on the road without demanding payback elsewhere, for example, by breaking down on the hard shoulder. Purists were initially sniffy, but with a 996 to suit virtually everyone from open top fans to trackday warriors, it has deservedly become the default choice for anyone who requires a sporting car that appeals to head and heart equally.

Ferrari F430

• Average Price Range: £65,000-300,000
• Production Run: 2004-2009
• Number Built: c.17,000
• Horsepower: 483-503bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 193-198mph/3.5-4.0secs

The 430 may have finally ditched the Dino-derived V8, cutting ties to a lineage that went back to the 1950s, but that was definitely A Good Thing. It meant that the new car was a proper clean-sheet design, a firm reboot, a rethink, if you will, of what an ‘entry level’ mid-engined Ferrari ought to be.

Clearly, what Ferrari’s engineers believed was that it should be the best real-world supercar in the, well, real world. Because that is exactly what the F430 gave contemporary buyers, it channelled Formula One technology to deliver a car that didn’t rely on its beauty to wow prospective buyers: technologically advanced, with a well-balanced, lightweight chassis, it proved utterly, thrillingly, viscerally brilliant on the road.

Best 00s Convertible

Mercedes R230

• Average Price Range: £7,000-150,000
• Production Run: 2001-2011
• Number Built:169,433
• Horsepower: 228-661bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 155-199mph/3.7-7.0secs

For decades, when SL owners contemplated a road trip, or even a gentle saunter to the pub, they had to think twice: what might the weather do? If rain, cold, or anything approximating inclement weather was called, that meant dragging the hard top out of the garage, trundling it along on its wheeled stand, and manfully positioning this heavy, typically over-engineered glass-and-metal behemoth into place.

All that changed with the R230. Thanks to its clever, equally over-engineered folding hard top, the new SL was both coupe and convertible. Whenever the British weather threatened to do what British weather does, whether switch from rain to shine or equally quickly back again, at the touch of a button, the driver could accommodate the change. It proved a mighty addition to the SL’s many intrinsic qualities and delivers one of the best and most usable big convertibles of the last 25 years.

Honda S2000

• Average Price Range: £8,000-25,000
• Production Run: 1999-2009
• Number Built: 110,673
• Horsepower: 237-247bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 150mph/5.8-6.2secs

While other car makers were busy developing cheap, simple MX-5 clones, Honda took a different path. The long-nosed S2000 evoked the profile of the original S800 and the packaging of the Honda RA270 single seater. But how it looks isn’t really the S2000’s calling card. That’s very much all about its four-cylinder DOHC VTEC engine and its 9,000rpm red line.

The S2000 is, then, a screamer, a proper technologically innovative sports car that marries its motor to near-perfect 50/50 weight distribution. In typical Honda style, it steers sharply, it handles impeccably, and it’ll keep doing all that for many, many miles because it is, as we said, a Honda. For some reason, the S2000 remains a bit of an under-the-radar car. Let’s change that.

Best 00s Hot Hatch

Honda Civic Type R

• Average Price Range: £4,000-16,000
• Production Run: 2001-2005
• Number Built: 35,190
• Horsepower: 197-212bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 146mph/6.4-6.6secs

Honda had always threatened to make the best hot hatch, and with the seventh-generation Type R, it finally and definitely delivered. This is not a car for those who want all-around usability. It’s not a car for the Tesco commute, or for taking Aunt Wilma to the local garden centre. Nope, the Type R is for the drivers.

Beneath the typically unassuming Civic looks, there is Honda’s screaming K20 2L VTEC engine that’s good for 215hp and features a fully balanced crankshaft and uprated pistons, flywheel and exhaust. Naturally, many enthusiasts go yet further, because it is a highly tunable powerplant. But many hot hatches have great engines. Where the Type R scores are in its engagement and handling. Perhaps, to some, not quite as sharp as its predecessor, but the overall combination of revvy engine, slick gearbox and stiff suspension puts it on this list.

Ford Focus RS

• Average Price Range: £16,500-35,000
• Production Run: 2002-2003
• Number Built: 4,501
• Horsepower: 212bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 144mph/5.9secs

We’re not demeaning previous wearers of Ford’s ‘Rally Sport’ badge, but the Focus RS really is in a different league. In typical Noughties style, it was fairly understated, just some Imperial Blue paintwork, wider arches, OZ Racing wheels and a keen enthusiast’s eye set these pacy Focus’s apart from their more humble brethren.

What makes the RS so good is that it takes an already brilliant standard package, honed by Ford chassis supremo Richard Parry, and maxes its capability. The 2L Duratec is pushed out to 212bhp, the power transmitted via a Quaiffe differential to the front wheels. The handling is scintillating, with brilliant turn-in and communicative steering. Just 4,501 were built, many have been smashed or modified in unpleasant directions. Find a good one, and you get hot hatch heaven.

Best 00s City Car

Fiat 500 

• Average Price Range: £1,-000-5,000
• Production Run: 2007-present
• Number Built: 3,200,000
• Horsepower: 69-100bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 99-113mph/10.5-12.9secs

In recent decades, Fiat has not had a particularly consistent strike rate when it comes to ‘getting things right.’ The model range has often felt like the result of a company wilfully trying to mess things up. Not so the ‘Nuova Nuova 500’ city car. It cleverly channelled the aesthetic of the original and its nippy city-run-about ability, whilst dialling up the style.

The 500’s evolution since its launch in 2007 does feel as if Fiat didn’t quite realise what it had created. Convertibles, posh versions, and quick versions have all evolved to meet demand. The car has been so successful that Fiat has even based a whole range of spin-off models around the basic idea. The modern 500 is more usable and durable than the original, but it remains true to its origins in a way that perhaps its modern retro-themed rivals really aren’t.

MINI R50/R53

• Average Price Range: £1,000-10,000+
• Production Run: 2001-2006
• Number Built: over 1,000,000
• Horsepower: 75-163bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 112-138mph/7.1-10.6secs

The BMW MINI is the perfect template for rejuvenating a classic model. Conceived by The Rover Group in the 90s, but born in 2001, the new car leaned into the original’s cheeky, chuckable character. None more so than the Cooper and its supercharged Cooper S sibling.

To say the original R50 was really good feels like an understatement. A wheel at each corner plus some clever suspension trickery delivers the go-kart feel of the original, but without the bouncy castle ride that, with the classic Mini, can be the corollary. Light, nimble and, in boosted Cooper S form, lightning quick, the R50 is the city car that loves the open, winding road.

Best 00s Saloon Car

Ford Mondeo Mk3

• Average Price Range: £800-8,500
• Production Run: 2000-2007
• Number Built: over 1,000,000
• Horsepower: 89-223bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 112-151mph/7.1-12.2secs

As we’ve said before, the Mk1 Mondeo was good. In the 90s, it made the business of showing and selling photocopiers, if possible, even more exciting and rewarding, principally by making the driving part between meetings so engaging.

The Mk3 did all that too, but even better. Sharper styling, from Ford’s ‘edge’ phase, did away with the previous car’s blandness, while better interiors and packaging made it easier to live with. In short, the Mk3 was close to saloon car, nay hatchback, perfection and who doesn’t want to applaud that? If it had a different badge, we probably all would.

MG ZT 250 V8 

• Average Price Range: £15,000-45,000
• Production Run: 2003-2005
• Number Built: 883
• Horsepower: 256bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 155mph/6.2secs

When money is tighter and the corporate writing is very much, if not actually on the wall, certainly close by, it doesn’t feel like an obvious decision to entirely re-engineer your fuddy duddy saloon car and turn it into a rear-drive, V8-grumbling weapon likely to appeal to approximately three people, at least two of whom are probably part of the design team that created it.

And yet, of course, that’s exactly the sort of thinking that prevailed at MG Rover in its dying days. See also the MG XPower. Unlike the underdeveloped MG, the ZT 250 V8 was properly sorted and very, very good. Mustang power, a reworked chassis and some pumped-up visuals delivered a fitting addition to Rover’s V8 lineage. It cost £35m to develop. They sold 883. MG Rover lost about £10,000 on every single one. Fortunately, buy one now, and you get one of Britain’s best V8 saloons.

Best 00s Executive Car

Bentley Flying Spur

• Average Price Range: £12,000-35,000
• Production Run: 2005-2013
• Number Built: 25,000
• Horsepower: 552-602bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 195-200mph/4.5-4.9secs

When it arrived in 2005, it was clear that the Flying Spur was the first Bentley saloon in decades developed without serious cost constraints. Good as they were, the SZ-Series and Arnage felt hobbled by the firm’s evidently empty coffers.

As with the closely related Continental GT, the Flying Spur aimed to be the best. And it delivered. That clever W12 twin turbo made it brutally quick in a manner that would please the Bentley Boys, were they to mysteriously return in the Noughties. It made the Flying Spur, well, fly – it was the most powerful and fastest saloon car in the world on its launch. Beyond the tech, there was lots of traditional Bentley hand-crafting, especially if you ticked the ‘Mulliner’ option. This was a car where you sensed Bentley turned everything up to 11.

Jaguar X350 XJ 

• Average Price Range: £3,000-18,000
• Production Run: 2003-2009
• Number Built: 83,066
• Horsepower: 204-400bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 141-155mph/5.0-8.2secs

The X350 was the final roll of the dice for a traditional style of Jaguar saloon that owed its origins to the 1960s. While that undoubtedly appealed to the firm’s heritage-buying enthusiasts, it arguably undersold what the X350 was really all about.

After decades of recycling the 1980s XJ40, the X350 was the firm’s first all-new XJ. It featured advanced lightweight aluminium construction and clever active air suspension that made this big old bus handle and ride with surprising smoothness and alacrity. Where the X308 and X300 had felt like old cars wearing refreshed bodywork, beyond the imperial styling, the X350 felt entirely together and thoroughly modern. Jaguar finally sussed the problem by launching the X351, which was an X350 in modern clothing, but it was all a little too late.

Best 00s Estate Cars

Audi RS6 C5 Avant

• Average Price Range: £12,000-35,000
• Production Run: 2002-2004
• Number Built: 8,081
• Horsepower: 444-473bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 155-174mph/4.4secs

Audi tested the water with the Porsche-developed RS2, but went full fat with the RS6 C5. Twin turbos bolted to the excellent 4.2L V8 delivered the sort of punch that catapulted the Audi past the local competition and firmly into the supercar league.

What made it such a compelling package was that the RS6 was both brutally quick and utterly civilised. It was also properly nailed together, built at a time when Audi delivered actual quality, rather than its distant cousin, the sensation of quality. Later cars would be quicker and more aggressively styled, but the C5 is the original, a sleeper wagon capable of waking the most slumbering of passengers and dogs at the jab of the throttle.

Skoda Superb B6 Estate

• Average Price Range: £1,500-9,000
• Production Run: 2008-2015
• Number Built: 618,471 (all models)
• Horsepower: 104-256bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 118-155mph/6.4-12.1secs

There is nothing, on the face of it, to outwardly explain why the Superb makes this list. Yes, Skoda gave it an aspirational name, but it looks to all intents and purposes like a very ordinary VAG wagon. Look closer, though, especially at the rear doors, and you’ll see why it makes this list.

A good estate needs to be a load lugger and, well, the Superb wagon is the loadiest of load luggers. Those rear doors are the giveaway – it is Tardis-like. The boot capacity is 565 litres, fold the rear seats, and it becomes a van-like 1,670 litres. The latter hints at the other reason it makes this list. For rear seat passengers, the Superb is a luxury limousine reinvented for the ordinary family. There are acres of rear legroom, even when sitting behind a long-legged driver. Well built, dog-friendly and free of badge snobbery, the Superb is well named.

Best 00s Supercars

Bugatti Veyron

• Average Price Range: £1,100,000-2,500,000
• Production Run: 2005-2015
• Number Built: 450
• Horsepower: 987-1,184bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 253-268mph/2.2-2.46secs

Ferdinand Piech was a man who liked to say ‘non’ but absolutely, definitely didn’t like to hear it. The result was this car. The Veyron. Piech wanted to create the best car in the world, and to do that, he refused to accept compromise.

It was a bold gambit from a company more used to churning out grey Golf hatchbacks. And yet it worked, because the Veyron was not just a Top Trumps triumph – we’re thinking that 1,000hp W16 motor – but a road-going marvel too. Naturally, most of the 450 cars ever built have barely been driven, spending much of their life in static collections, but that’s hardly the point. The Veyron was always about what could be achieved, and that it was.

Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren 

• Average Price Range: £250,000-3,500,000
• Production Run: 2003-2009
• Number Built: 2,157
• Horsepower: 617-641bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 209mph/3.5-3.8secs

Channelling racing technology into road cars sounds, in principle, like a great idea. In practice, not so much. We’re thinking TVR’s legendary wear-prone Speed Six engine, and Ferrari’s combustible F1 gearbox. Racing is about taking things to the max, about performance in short bursts, about just enough durability and reliability to survive a race. Road cars require something different.

The SLR McLaren, perhaps not surprisingly, avoided all those problems, largely because it was developed by Mercedes. Rejuvenating the 1955 SLR’s evocative name and quite a lot of its style and ethos, the new SLR was not so much drizzled with F1 tech, it was embalmed in it. The side exit exhausts weren’t for show; they were to enable a F1-style flat floor. A super-light carbon-fibre monocoque chassis, active aerodynamics and big carbon ceramic brakes were all track-honed. Then there was the 671hp 5.4L supercharged AMG V8. Few SLRs will ever be driven in a way that exploits all that, but who cares when you simply know it could?

Best 00s SUVs

Range Rover L322

• Average Price Range: £2,500-35,000+
• Production Run: 2002-2012
• Number Built: c.300,000
• Horsepower: 174-503bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 111-140mph/5.9-12.7secs

With the P38, Land Rover fumbled the ball. There were no such problems with the L322. This was a Range Rover for the new century, a luxury wagon that fulfilled many roles – limo, offroader, family wagon, executive express, load lugger – and managed to do every single one of them equally well.

Unlike the earlier models, you could also choose any L322, diesel or petrol, and it would be equally good. At a time when the competition (see below) was nipping at Range Rover’s heels, the L322 executed a home run. It reset the bar and also created the template for every future Rangey.

Porsche Cayenne 

• Average Price Range: £3,500-45,000
• Production Run: 2002-2010
• Number Built: 276,652
• Horsepower: 247-542bhp
• Top Speed/0-60mph: 133-174mph/4.7-9.1secs

The idea of a 4×4 SUV Porsche now seems so cemented in the idea of Porscheness that it’s hard to roll back to the time before 2002, when the Cayenne didn’t exist. Back then, it was all about low sports cars of the mid, rear and front-engined variety.

It is a testament to the Cayenne’s brilliance that it changed how we think about Porsche. A big, multi-storey SUV shouldn’t handle and go as well as that first Cayenne, but it’s evidence of the firm’s clever engineering that it did. The Cayenne carved out a niche alongside the Range Rover for a properly sporting yet still luxurious SUV. Rivals have tried and largely failed to replicate it, which explains why it remains a sales colossus to this day.

Conclusion

With the earliest Noughties cars on the cusp of classic status, there’s never been a better time to discover or even rediscover your favourite from this pivotal era. New model types, new types of existing models and jaw-dropping supercars, it all began in the decade we call Noughties. We’ve got hundreds listed, including our classic car auctions.