There's a common misconception that in order to get a car with high horsepower, you have to pay a lot of money. While this is often the case, it doesn't really need to be. Some good new cars offer a lot of power for not a lot of money, and even more importantly, there's this wonderful thing in the car world known as depreciation.

Thanks to this wonderful thing, high horsepower cars that once were strictly off limits may now be somewhat affordable. Sports cars, performance sedans, and other cars that were forgotten or misunderstood when they were new. Ones that come from automakers known for bad depreciation. Models that aren't quite as valued by the community as they ought to be. Some have reached the stratosphere in terms of value, but some have remained relatively cheap.

We've covered brand new cars with over 400 hp you can buy in 2025, but now it's time to look through the used market. These cars are not exactly $800 obo like you might see on Craigslist, but they're certainly a lot more affordable than when they were new. As well as their high horsepower figures, they have a lot of other merits as well.

General Motors has always been one of the best purveyors of cheap high horsepower used cars, and one of the best examples of this is the first generation Cadillac CTS-V. Desperate to shake its reputation as being a favorite of the elderly, Cadillac decided to try beating the Germans at their own game with a performance sedan.