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The hot vRS version of the new Skoda Elroq will be priced from £46,560 when it arrives in the UK this summer.

The vRS brings a number of changes over the standard Elroq, including a 52bhp bump in power to 335bhp, a stiffened chassis and a series of visual additions.

The extra reserves are supplied by the same dual-motor powertrain as in the Volkswagen ID 4 GTX and mean the vRS can dispatch the 0-62mph sprint in 5.4sec – 1.2sec quicker than the standard electric car.

Skoda claims the vRS's slightly stiffened chassis, sharper steering set-up and lowered suspension (15mm at the front, 10mm at the rear) combine to create a “sportier driving feel”.

More powerful front brakes have also been fitted.

The vRS can be picked out from the standard Elroq by its new roof rails, black accents and 21in alloy wheels, but it's the new 'Sport' and 'Futuristic' external sounds that will be the most obvious to passers-by.

Given the model's billing as the Elroq’s new range-topper, it receives a higher level of standard kit. For example, it comes with Dynamic Chassis Control (DCC) adjustable suspension, LED matrix headlights, heated front seats, a 12-speaker sound system and an electric tailgate.

The 5in digital cockpit and the 13in infotainment display meanwhile gain vRS-specific graphics.

The vRS draws its power from the same 84kWh pack as the Elroq 85, but its sportier remit results in a range that's 21 miles shorter than its sibling’s 360 miles. The pack can be topped up at speeds of up to 185kW.

Depreciation: it can be as much a friend as an enemy. It shrinks the value of your wheeled assets but can also bring once-unattainable dreams within reach.

The idea of a cheap Ferrari is almost as old as the brand itself, but as clichéd as the ‘Ferrari for the price of a Ford’ story is, the excitement of this possibility never wanes, so we make no excuses for once again testing the waters.

You must still spend the price of a very decent set of new wheels – a range-topping Ford Kuga, for instance – to buy a Ferrari of sufficient calibre to ensure that its presence in your garage doesn’t quickly sour.

Enough of the theory, though. Can you really buy into exotic territory on a shoestring? And does that come with the sort of headaches you would imagine? Read on to find out...

Buying a cheap Ferrari

We set out to find the cheapest Ferrari and ended up inspecting the Mondial you see here. It wasn't the absolute cheapest functioning Ferrari available on the day, as anything left-hand-drive or accident-recorded was eliminated.

There’s more than one sub-£40k starter Ferrari.

For the really adventurous (or rash), there’s the 400/412, an elegant, V12-engined four-seater that’s very much a grand tourer and often fitted with a value-reducing automatic gearbox. Thirsty and costly to maintain, it’s nevertheless glamorous and gets you one of Ferrari’s finer engines.

Or there’s its successor, the 456 GT – also a V12 four-seater, also often an automatic and also expensive to maintain, according to Kent High Performance Cars boss Roger Collingwood.

KHPC is a long-established Ferrari specialist – 41 years so far – and very likely Britain’s largest source of used Ferraris. It also has a workshop that services, repairs and restores these cars.

It’s here where we find a £37,995, 49,000-mile Mondial from 1985, with the 240bhp 2.9-litre V8.

“The Mondial is a typical entry-level Ferrari,” says sales executive Simon Hamilton-Walker. Collingwood adds that its four seats can often help win a green light from a family man’s partner, although Hamilton-Walker drily adds that the rear seats “are only useful if you haven’t got legs”.

Collingwood explains that most of the stock “is on a sale-or-return basis”, KHPC earning commission on cars sold on behalf of customers. It typically sells 60-70 annually.

Every car is inspected before it’s sold and any necessary work carried out to bring the car up to standard. This can include anything from minor rectification to corrosion repair, especially on older models like the Mondial, which Collingwood says “is very prone to rust”. He elaborates: “The chassis is usually okay – it’s tubular – but the wings, doors and sills are all vulnerable.”

The mechanical story is more encouraging. “The engine will do 100,000 miles with no problem if it’s properly maintained and has regular oil changes,” Collingwood says, and the same applies to the gearbox if it’s treated carefully.

Most mechanical parts are still available for the Mondial and body panels can be found or fabricated. Trim is harder, says Collingwood, but can usually be made.

What's it like?

We can’t drive this Mondial, because it belongs to a customer, but we’re taken for a ride in it over enough distance to suggest that it functions as it should, a sports exhaust lifting its aural impact. There are no rattles or squeaks, the engine sounds healthy, everything works and the interior is in excellent shape, as is the red bodywork.

It feels like you could immediately do some distance in this car with no issue.

Servicing

There are no invoices, but the full book pack remains with the car, as does the second key (both encouraging signs), it comes with a factory hard top and its 87,000 miles are below average for its age. 

The paintwork carries quite a few scratches and the interior could use a deeper clean, but there should be plenty of life left in it yet.

Ultimately it's mid-engined and infinitely more appealing than the new small SUVs that £40,000 could buy you.

How to buy a budget Ferrari Mondial

Collingwood says: “Buy the best that you can afford and ideally from a specialist, because then it will have been checked over.”

As a specialist himself, he’s bound to say this, but equally the condition of this Mondial and the experiences of your serially car-buying reporter bear out this advice. And if you do have a problem, there’s a dealer with a good reputation to go back to.

Just as important is the car’s history, especially in the case of a Ferrari, which can deteriorate significantly if not regularly tended to.

This car has a pretty extensive maintenance record, as you would hope of a 39-year-old, all of it neatly catalogued. Particular good news is that it had new timing belts and a fresh clutch less than 5000 miles ago.

Workshops with fixed price menus are handy for budgeting, too. A Mondial service is £745 and a belt change £1650 at KHPC – hardly Dacia prices but not bad at all for a thoroughbred.

Sales of cars from Chinese brands in the UK grew 88% in March, as brands including BYD, MG, Omoda and Jaecoo expanded their footprint here.

Chinese brands sold 28,883 cars in March to give them a market share of 7.5%, up from 4.0% in March 2024, according to figures published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.

In the first three months of 2025, the Chinese share was 7.0%.

The growth came from newcomers such as BYD, which sold 6480 cars, up 754% on the year before.

SAIC-owned MG led the Chinese cohort with 15,876 sales, up 23%, on the back of the increased popularity of the HS and ZS SUVs, which finished seventh and ninth in the overall top 10 for the month.

Also boosting the Chinese share were Chery-owned arrivals Omoda and Jaecoo, which together sold almost 4000 cars, beating established brands such as Citroën, Fiat, Jeep, Lexus and Suzuki.

The definition of what includes a Chinese brand is muddied by the global footprint of Geely, but for the purpose of this analysis, we haven’t included Lotus, Polestar or Volvo, which produce a proportion of their models outside China. If we had included them, the Chinese share of the UK market in March would have risen to 12%.

The rapid expansion of Chinese brands in the UK market has been accelerated by the shift to electrification, including hybrids, plug-in hybrids and electric cars.

They accounted for 11% of all electric cars sold here in March, led by the BYD Seal saloon, with 2094 sales – enough to place it sixth in the EV chart, ahead of the BMW i4 and Skoda Enyaq. The MG 4 EV hatchback was ninth.

China’s EV leadership put it ahead of Korean brands, which accounted for 9.2% of EV sales in March. 

Japanese brands took just 3.2% of EV sales, signalling a fundamental weakness in their line-ups as legislation forces the pace of the EV shift.

PHEVs have also become a core competence for Chinese brands. BYD topped the UK's PHEV model chart in March with the Seal U, registering 2972 sales, putting it head of long-time leader the Ford Kuga.

Overall, Chinese brands logged 15% of all PHEV sales in the month, with BYD’s success augmented by PHEV versions of the MG HS and Jaecoo 7 small SUVs.

Chinese brands are also making inroads in the hybrid market, with MG becoming the fourth biggest hybrid brand in the month after Toyota, Nissan and Renault.

MG’s rapid rise has been driven by the success of the ZS hybrid SUV, the second best-selling hybrid in March after the Toyota Yaris.

It's rare in UK automotive history that relatively unknown brands have made such an impact in such a short space of time, but changing precipitations of competence around electrification have helped. 

“Customers see electric cars as a technology platform with no emotional baggage attached to it,” Guy Pigounakis, MG Motor UK's commercial director, told Autocar.

“That’s probably why some of the new entrants have established themselves so quickly. When it comes to electric powertrains, they’ve got at least the same amount of background as any of the legacy brands, probably more so.”

Chinese brands have also been helped by keen pricing at time when the average pricing of new cars has shot up, giving customers the chance to buy new electrified technology at prices equal to or below that which established brands are charging for conventional ICE models.

The Seal U PHEV SUV. for example, is at £33,315 almost £7000 cheaper than the entry version of the similar-size Volkswagen Tayron.

Chinese brands are being helped by the fact that the UK chose not to follow the EU and raise the import tax on China-built EVs.

The taxes were imposed after the EU calculated that Chinese brands were keeping prices low partly through state support and calculated rates judged to level the playing field for European manufacturers.

The sheer size, financial clout and ambition of the biggest Chinese manufacturers are given them market presence in a way that start-ups haven't been able to replicate. 

For example, Chery’s Omoda and Jaecoo brands now boast more than 70 dealers in the UK, located from Aberdeen to Plymouth, while BYD targets having 120-150 dealers here within the next two years.

BYD, the global sales leader in EVs and PHEV, aims to be within “touching distance of everybody that needs to buy a car”, UK sales and marketing chief Steve Beattie told Autocar recently.

In the same interview, he pledged to make BYD the UK’s biggest brand outright. 

Other Chinese brands are coming. Tesla-rival Xpeng sold 36 cars in March in advance of its tech-driven push into the EV space with the G6, while Stellantis-backed Leapmotor opened its account here with 193 sales of its C10 SUV and T03 city car.

Those who have pledged to follow include state-owned giant GAC, which is aiming for the budget end of the EV market with a rival for the MG 4 EV and a bigger SUV.

Innovative battery-swapping EV maker Nio has also promised a UK roll-out for its budget Firefly brand and Tesla-angled Onvo brand, with its flagship Nio models also a possibility.

Meanwhile, BYD is making bullish claims about its premium Denza brand.

Success isn’t guaranteed, though. Great Wall Motor (GWM) is struggling to make a dent with its Ora 03 hatchback, with sales down a massive 91% in March at just 31 units.

The company is now pinning its hopes on hybrid SUVs from its newly launched Haval budget brand.

China’s pressure on the UK market could potentially ease with news that the EU is considering axing tariffs in favour of either minimum pricing or quotas on Chinese EVs.

However, while the value gap remains between Chinese models and their more established counterparts, sales are expected to continue to grow at the same healthy rate.

The AUDI E5 Sportback has been unveiled as the first production model from the German car maker's new China-specific sub-brand, packing up to 776bhp and a range of 478 miles.

Described as having been developed “in China for China”, it is an electric car based on new underpinnings developed in collaboration with MG owner SAIC.

Its design is a faithful translation of the E Concept that was shown last year, diverging almost completely from the design language used by the brand’s previous models. It completely dispenses with the four-ring logo, for example, and is much more minimalist in its surfacing treatment.

It is positioned roughly in line with the combustion-engined Audi A5 but is slightly longer and wider, most likely to meet Chinese-market expectations for interior space.

Inside, a 27in display screen spans the full width of the dashboard. Its software is said to place the critical functions in the top level of its menus at all times, and there is an app store that is accessed using facial recognition technology.

The E5 will be offered with four battery-electric powertrains with outputs of 295bhp, 402bhp, 570bhp and 776bhp. The range-topper has four-wheel drive and is badged Quattro, while the entry-level car uses a single rear-mounted motor.

The most potent version is capable of dispatching 0-62mph in 3.4sec.

A range of up to 478 miles – on China's more lenient Light-Duty Vehicle Test Cycle – is yielded by the car’s 100kWh battery pack, which is said to be capable of taking on sufficient charge for 230 miles of range in 10 minutes.

The car also majors on autonomous driving capabilities and can take control in both motorway and urban driving. A combination of a roof-mounted lidar box, three long-range radars, 12 ultrasonic sensors and an array of cameras allows it to “predict tricycles and delivery riders like a veteran of Beijing’s hutongs”, Audi claimed.

Production of the E5 Sportback will begin later this year but there are no plans for it to be sold in Europe. It will be followed by a saloon in 2026 and an SUV in 2027, both based on the same platform as the E5.