Quattro, manual, petrol V6, wagon - what more could you possibly want?
Acid can be dodgy stuff. You really don't want to be drinking it unless it's acetic acid on your chips or citric acid in your G&T. In the days when Mrs Shed prepared jam sandwiches for Shed's lunch he regularly picked up a whiff of stronger, more industrial acids whenever he opened the Tupperware box. He's never been able to prove anything in a court of law but he knows for a fact that she once put neat bleach on the toilet seat just before his morning constitutional.
Today's sub-£1,500 offering, an Audi A4 Avant, is a good example of this weird phenomenon. The coatings on pretty much all its touchy feely surfaces - switches, gearknob, steering wheel - have deteriorated badly. The rest of the proposition looks borderline exciting though. Why? Because this is no common or garden 1.8 petrol or 1.9 diesel A4. It's a 3.0-litre 30-valve V6 petrol, which puts it right behind the 4.2-litre V8 S4 in the gen-two A4 pecking order.
You were doing well if you had any sort of B6 A4 Avant as your company motor back in 2003. Even a basic model was regarded as a cool and thoughtful choice. The 3.0 was the IDGAF choice. It poked out 217hp at a lofty 6,300rpm and 221lb ft at a more useful 3,200rpm. That was enough to push its nicely resolved 1,570kg shape along at 150mph, en route to which it would potentially have covered the 0-60mph dash in 7.1sec.
Assuming you can afford the running costs on a 3.0 six - the fuel will disappear at the rate of 25mpg if you're lucky, 20 or less if you're not, and the tax is £360 a year - what can you expect to go wrong? Well, if you hear a ticking from the top end it might be that the cam lobes are worn. That mainly affected 2002 cars but wasn't restricted to them.