Which car has the slowest depreciation in the UK?

Why you’ll appreciate the Lotus Elise
Graham Scott|Autocar10 April 2017

There are quite a few cars out there that lose over 50% or even 60% of their value when they’re just one year old. And you might imagine that a sports car or performance car would lose huge percentages. Sometimes that is the case, but not always.

For example, the slowest depreciating performance car in the UK is the Lotus Elise. According to What Car? figures, if you bought an Elise 1.8 220 new, it would cost you £37,150. After a year it’s still worth £35,250. A drop of only £1900 on a new car that’s covered 12,000 miles sounds pretty excellent. And the good news doesn’t stop there.

Lotus Elise Sprint

After two years and 24,000 miles the Elise is worth £29,000. Double the years and mileage again and the car is still worth £20,350 which, after four years and nearly 50,000 miles of exciting motoring, sounds like amazing value.

That means the Elise retains about 55% of its value, which compares very well to competitors like the Alfa Romeo 4C, which lose nearly 63% of its original £52,500 over four years.

Alfa Romeo 4C

However, if you’re looking for a big, luxury saloon that can depreciate slowly on British roads, then look to another British brand – Bentley. The Bentley Continental GT W12 is a mighty beast, with a mighty price tag: £189,550. You might imagine a new owner would take a real bath on the depreciation, but not a bit of it.

After a year and 12,000 miles of prestige motoring, the Continental GT W12 is still worth 98.6% of its value. That’s only a loss of about £3000, which in this kind of price range is simply a rounding error. After four years and 48,000 miles it even just pips the Lotus Elise, with it retaining about 55.75% of its original value.

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