10 Cool Used American Cars For Under £20,000

Are you the type of person who owns a pair of cowboy boots, listens to Creed and often Googles 'Firing ranges near Weston-super-Mare'? Then it sounds like you need an American car in your life.

Admittedly, it’s hard to look cool in anything American in the UK. After all, the big, loud, brash nature of most cars you’d love to be seen in stateside doesn’t translate particularly well to our dinky Roman roads trodden on by people who will tut at the mere sight of anything slightly obnoxious.

That, and the fact most of the really cool stuff is left-hand drive means pickings can be slim. It’s why we’ve upped our usual budget from £10,000 to £20,000, but there is stuff out there – and here are 10 ideas for you.

S197 Ford Mustang

If you’re very, very good at haggling or keeping an eagle-eye on the classifieds, you might just about be able to snag yourself a right-hand drive S550 Ford Mustang GT for a shade under £20,000. You could get an EcoBoost, but why would you?

Until more become widely available, we’d suggest getting your cheap-ish Mustang fix with one of the S917 Ford Mustangs out there.

Built from 2004 right through to 2014, the fourth-gen marked the turning point of the Mustang going from another muscle car to something you might actually be able to live with outside of America. Provided you got over the fact it’s a left hooker.

There’s a reasonable amount for sale in the UK as we’re writing this. A proper V8 can go between £10k-15k depending on the mileage and modifications you’re willing to put up with. V6s can be had for cheaper still, but you just wouldn’t, would you?

C5 Chevrolet Corvette

It wasn’t until the C8 Corvette that the UK finally got a right-hand drive version of the sports car. Unfortunately though, the mid-engined machine will cost you north of £80,000 and they’ll probably never truly be considered cheap.

Fortunately, an appetite for Corvettes means many of the older generations have been imported to the UK over the years, and quite a few fall within a £20,000 budget. The one you want will likely be an age/nostalgia thing, which for this particular author means the C5.

5.7-litre LS1 V8? Check. Pop-up headlights? Double check. Given the LS1 did officially have a home in the UK courtesy of the Vauxhall Monaro, it shouldn’t be impossible to find bits and maintain, either.

Cadillac Escalade

We suspect this could be the most polarising inclusion on this list. To some, the idea of a big, American, V8 SUV driven by half of the R&B industry in the ‘00s is going to be a very cool thing indeed. To others, you’ll probably look like a tit.

In case you’re in the former camp, the Cadillac Escalade is a pretty surefire way of grabbing attention. It’s not something to buy if you want driving dynamics, ease of parking, subtle arrivals… but it’s perversely quite tempting.

£20,000 easily nets you a first or second generation Escalade, with plenty of change to spare for a set of 24-inch DUB wheels.

Pontiac Fiero

You don’t have to be American to know the Pontiac Fiero was once a bit of a joke. They were built poorly, didn’t drive brilliantly, were pretty slow… and really only existed as a platform to create questionable replica Ferraris. Oh, and often caught fire.

Time has been kind to the Fiero, we think, anyway. Given how expensive Toyota MR2s are getting – probably the closest thing we can compare it with – it now looks an interesting left-field option for a small, mid-engine sports car.

Admittedly, it won’t feel sporty. Or go sporty. But they do look kind of cool now nostalgia has kicked in, and even in the UK, you won’t pay more than £8,000 for the absolute best ones.

GMC Typhoon

We think the GMC Typhoon is the coolest American SUV, bar none.

Long before the performance EV became commonplace, the GMC Typhoon proved you could make a fast car out of a practical one. Based on the humble Jimmy, it had a 4.3-litre, turbocharged four-cylinder producing 280bhp officially, and more in reality.

The Typhoon is incredibly rare in the UK. In fact, there’s only one for sale as we’re writing this – and two registered to the best of our knowledge. If you have the means, grab it.

Ford Thunderbird

Yes, we’re talking about the polarising eleventh-generation Ford Thunderbird rather than any of the classics. No, we don’t think we’ve lost our minds.

Granted, it’s mostly because you’ll struggle to find many cooler, older Thunderbirds for sale in the UK – there is a ‘62 for sale at £20,000 as we’re writing this.

Yet, if you want something that’s completely different to anything else you’ll see on our roads, we’re hard-pressed to think of a car that’ll do it better than the last of the Thunderbirds. 

Styled to look like a throwback to the original Thunderbird, we don’t think it looked particularly great when new nor has it aged well. It does however have a sweet Jaguar V8, and it’s guaranteed to stir conversation. Which ultimately, is why you want an American car anyway, right?

Jeep Wrangler

Not every cool American car has to be an import. The Jeep Wrangler, America’s bro-fuelled answer to the Land Rover Defender, is one we’d put into that category.

£20,000 casts quite a wide net for Wranglers. TJs can be had for as little as £5,000, and JKs for anything from £10,000 upwards. We’d suggest going for the newest, best Wrangler you can afford – all of them are going to be pretty capable off road and all of them look like a proper Jeep. Really, the only two boxes you need to tick.

Chrysler 300C SRT-8

We really are stretching ‘cool’ here. There’s no doubt the Chrysler 300C has a bit of an image problem here in the UK, usually conjuring up images of someone who really wanted a Bentley and wanted to slam it, but couldn’t remotely afford to do so.

Which is probably why, of the few SRT-8 300Cs we can see for sale in the UK, we’ve found a single unmodified example.

However, we must appreciate the fact it’s a saloon with a Hemi V8. Quite possibly the only one of its kind to have been sold on our shores, so it’s certainly unique. Plus you could have it as an estate, which is instantly cool. Just don’t tint the lights, for Pete’s sake.

Gen 4 Chevrolet Camaro

Like the Corvette we talked about earlier, for much of the Chevrolet Camaro’s lifespan, we’ve never had a right-hand drive version sold in the UK. Unlike the Corvette, that’ll never happen either, as the Camaro is no longer on sale.

A shame, because they’ve always been quite cool things. Here in the UK, where the only muscle car to be officially sold in recent times is a Mustang, you’d really have to want a Camaro to buy one. A silly statement though it looks when typed out, we hope you get what we mean.

If you do want a Camaro, you may struggle to find the one you really want – V8 fifth-gen to live out those Bumblebee fantasies – but you should easily be able to grab yourself a fourth-gen, Z28 ‘Catfish’. You may even have better luck importing a tidy, late one.

Anything pre-1980 that looks cool

We could attempt to be more nuanced and offer a particular old-school American car to recommend to you under £20,000. If we were an American publication, we probably would — only in dollars.
The reality in the UK though is, no matter which one you pick, they’re all going to feel largely the same. Big, heavy, a bit much for our roads and frankly hard to maintain. They’re also all going to have the same “What on earth is that?” effect you may be going for.

Just a search for ‘classic American cars for sale’ will reveal plenty of options. A Ford Galaxie 500 for example, or a Lincoln Continental. Maybe a Buick Wildcat or even a Chevy El Camino (yes, that’s the one we’d have).

Are we copping out with this one? Yes. Does it matter? No, not really. Go enjoy whatever barge you land upon.