You can get an early facelift for your budget, but it'll be reasonably high mileage, I traded my early 2012 facelift XFR in for less than that late last year and then it spent 6 months appearing at different dealers before finally selling again on eBay for under your budget. There aren't any major issues which they suffer with, but if you're unlucky the repairs can get stupidly expensive, but no more than any other car of this type. A guy I know had his engine implode and the total bill paid for by extended warranty was around £23k for a new engine fitting.
The 8 speed didn't come until MY2013 (generally 62 plate onwards) though, but apart from the speed of shifts I think I preferred the 6 speed to the 8 speed, the 8 speed always seems to be hunting for the right gear. There were changes to the engine maps at the same time as the 8 speed swap which took some of the character away, but it's still a brilliant engine. Fuel economy was better in my 8 speed, on a long motorway run I could get 34mpg, and the absolute max I ever saw in the 6 speed was 31 after about 30 miles of 50mph average cameras.
One thing you'll probably want to get is a different exhaust, the stock system just mutes the car too much. I went with the Spires Stage 2 system, which totally transforms the car and is well worth the price (I actually still have it in my shed, I really need to get around to selling it
). You can get cheaper custom made jobs, but you'll not know what you're getting until it's on the car.
Late 2007.
