It’s not always true that you need to spend a lot of money to get a great car. However, when big horsepower ratings are a requirement, it becomes harder to find a good vehicle at a great price. A lot of options you’ll see are run-down old sports cars, once-glorious machines whose prior owners have already wrung the useful life from them.
Even so, we’ve found a compelling variety of 400-horsepower cars for less than $20,000. Our selections include vehicles as new as five years old, and it’s a mix of dedicated sporty cars and luxury models with a big engine under the hood. We checked the inventory of cars for sale as of this writing in summer 2020, and we can confirm that each of our selections is a car you could actually buy today in decent condition at this price. (We ruled out some tempting options that just proved too difficult to find.) Check out our 10 cars with 400 hp under $20k to see which performance bargain is the best fit for your life. We’re going to start with the sports cars and then move into the luxury sedans.