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1 week ago | 
pistonheads.com | Tony Middlehurst
Ever since his apprenticeship days building Class 55 Deltic locos at English Electric’s Vulcan foundry in Newton-le-Willows, Shed has been partial to a big diesel. To this day he runs a Mercedes S124 wagon powered (ha!) by an OM606 3.0 straight-six oil burner. He won’t hear a bad word said about it. To be more accurate he won’t be able to hear a bad word said about it, on account of all the clattering.
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1 week ago | 
pistonheads.com | Tony Middlehurst
Available for £27,5002.4-litre flat-four, rear-wheel driveBigger engine largely plugged the GT86’s torque hole Revamped chassis still great, though steering maybe wasn’t quite as goodOne spec fitted all and there was no room in the backPrices finally starting to come down a bit but still highGuess when the original Toyota GT86/Subaru BRZ went on sale? The answer might surprise you. 2012. That’s right, 13 years ago.
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2 weeks ago | 
pistonheads.com | Tony Middlehurst
Yes folks, it’s that time again, eyes down and dobbers out for a quick round of your favourite SOTW game, ‘if it was that simple to fix, the dealer would have done it by now’ bingo! To give you time to get your pens and papers out we’ll start by rambling on about the gen-four W212 E-Class which first popped up in 2009 at the Geneva show. In time-honoured fashion, Mercedes called the coupé you’re looking at here an E350 even though it was actually built on the W204 C-Class platform.
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2 weeks ago | 
pistonheads.com | Tony Middlehurst
Available for £27,000 (V8), £39,000 (V10)4.2-litre V8 or 5.2-litre V10 petrol, all-wheel driveLooks and sounds epic with either engine, especially as a Spyder Very secure handling, lovely manual gearboxes Cabins can seem unexciting but everything is very well-builtValues seem to be bottoming out so now might be the time to buy ‘The best handling road car today.’ That’s how Jacky Ickx described the first-generation Audi R8 that we’re looking at here.
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3 weeks ago | 
pistonheads.com | Tony Middlehurst
Shed has found another SOTW debutant for you this week in the smooth shape of this BMW 330d E92 coupe. Good looking cars, these, and even better looking under the bonnet which conceals one of the best diesel engines ever made. This example has a pleasing whiff of permanence about it. Apart from a corroded rear spring that was replaced between the ’23 and ’24 MOT tests, nothing other than consumables have been noted on the 17 tests before last October’s examination, which showed no advisories.
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3 weeks ago | 
pistonheads.com | Tony Middlehurst
• Available for £28,000• 2.0-litre inline-four turbo petrol, all-wheel drive• World’s most powerful four-cylinder engine, so it goes like stink• Very configurable chassis, clings on forever• Quality improved over W176 gen-one, but there have been issues • Post-’23 models look more like ‘proper’ AMGs What’s the first word that comes into your head when someone says ‘AMG’? For most of us, that word will probably be ‘power’.
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4 weeks ago | 
pistonheads.com | Tony Middlehurst
Three-litre flat-six Porsche anyone? If you’re talking about a late '70s 911 SC you’ll be needing at least £60k for that and very likely a great deal more. Why waste all that cash when you can have a 3.0 flat-six in a much more practical vehicle for a mere two grand? We had one of these Subaru Outback 3.0 Rs on here almost exactly two years ago to the day in March 2023. That was a 2004 example in gold with 145,000 miles on the clock, a clean MOT pass, a full service history and a £1,999 price tag.
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1 month ago | 
pistonheads.com | Tony Middlehurst
Available for £58,0003.5-litre V6 supercharged petrol, rear-wheel drivePerformance not quite as spectacular as the looksProbably the easiest sports Lotus to run as a dailyQuite a few issues, fortunately not Usually SeriousMore ‘special’ than a Cayman? You decideAnnounced in 2022 as the last Lotus to be powered by a petrol engine, the Emira V6 was also Lotus’s first new model since its takeover by the Chinese concern Geely in 2017.
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1 month ago | 
pistonheads.com | Tony Middlehurst
Once upon a time, the XJ was the default Jag in Shed of the Week. Gradually, however, the old warhorse is slipping away into motoring’s misty hinterlands, or indeed histy minterlands, a process that will please those who wish to move on from the company’s old pipe and slippers image to its excitingly new mad haircuts and androids one. If the classified ads are any guide, which they are, the XJ’s replacement in the sweaty torture pit of sub-£2k motors is the XF.
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1 month ago | 
pistonheads.com | Tony Middlehurst
Available for £180,000 5.2-litre V12 petrol twin-turbo, rear-wheel drive Said to be the last V12 Vantage Fast on the road, but not in a firecracker Ferrari-style Looks inside and out won’t be for everybody Good so far on reliability but the odd quality control issue Big new-car premium over the V8 has almost completely vanished This time around we’re looking at the 2022-24 Aston Martin V12 Vantage, the productionised version of the 2007 V12 Vantage RS Concept and, according to Aston Martin,...
