When you write a column for TG magazine, a charming but steely lady called Esther (iron fist, velvet glove – think Terminator 3) chases you down for copy quite a while before you get to see it. So writing about anything very topical can be a risky business.
In this month’s column I mentioned in passing that the precipitous collapse of the pound meant that German cars were now costing rather more in Germany than they did here. What fun, eh? A complete reversal of the good old, bad old days in the mid nineties when the UK was nicknamed ’Treasure Island’ (really, it was) by continental manufacturers charging about 25% more for the same car here than there. And then, with an entirely straight face, blaming “conversion to right hand drive” for the difference.
I was then left with a long gap until publication trusting that the pound wouldn’t bounce back and make me look an arse. Well it didn’t. It fell a lot further, actually. And now we have an unheard-of price disparity between here and the continent – in our favour – that threatens to rewrite all the rules.
Go to Porsche.com, select Germany and check out the local prices. A 911 Turbo costs 143,000 Euros or, at the present exchange rate, £131,000. In the UK it’s £99,500. An Audi S3 now costs £33,500 in Ingolstadt and £26,500 here. BMW M3? Eleven grand cheaper in the UK. Even a bog 118d costs nearly £5k less. I could go on but if you call the across the board discrepancy roughly 25% you won’t be far out. And the gap widens even further when you add extras, because they’re dearer as well.
There are two major consequences to all this. Firstly, these manufacturers are facing a pretty uncompromising rock/hard place scenario in their UK business models. Not only have the proceeds of each sale fallen by about a quarter because of the collapsing pound but the traditional mechanism for correcting the problem (everyone puts their sterling prices up en masse to compensate) is hardly tenable in a credit crunch.
Secondly, and most intriguingly, what are they going to do in Germany when they hear? Get a bit cross, I expect, and then start ordering their 911s in left hand drive from the UK at a 25% discount. And EC trade regulations stipulate that Porsche can’t stop them (though I’m sure they won’t make it easy).
Could be a ray of sunshine at least for our catastrophically downtrodden UK Dealerships, as Fritz piles across the channel on the ferry to binge on our cheap and plentiful German prestige cars. Either way, fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
That’s a funny one!
The Irish are getting serious value for money with the current exchange rate at the moment too. They’re going across the border into the North and buying all around them because the VAT is about 5% cheaper on many items and then our VRT is so high here that our cars are very dear in comparison to the North. Was looking at Auto Trader recently and the value is just incredible, you could save anything from 5-50 grand on a car. The only problem is you need to pay import tax then but still I’ve seen people buy fairly ordinary cars and save 7 grand, it would be interesting to do an M3 comparison test across Europe.
Yeah, the first comments right! When he mentioned people going across the border, it reminded me the time i went up, and every single car was packed to the brim with stuff from the north, purely because it was so much cheaper as of the weakened pound. And about the VRT differences, I’m anyone can save about a few grand on any type of car over the border. I know this because we just bought a Renault over in England, and saved 4 grand on the price.
I like the Idea that the cars get shipped from germany to the UK, then Germans jump on a plane buy them here & then drive them back. And i thought manufactures were going green
think the subject is worthy of further ongoing analysis, maybe a monthly review along the lines the bloke (wouldn’t be a girl, would it) above me suggests
It’s all a massive boost to the British manufacturing industry- if only we still made things……….
German car manufacturers are hit by the economic downturn just like everybody else. If this weakness of the pound means we can still make and sell cars (with lower margins, but you did’t believe the prices of Porsche, Merzedes, BMW anyway, did you?) then our workers will keep their jobs, paying taxes, and our industry will remain intact, also paying taxes and social benefits.
It gets completly absurd when you think about Minis and Rolls-Royce etc., because in a way by you Britons buying cheap german Bemers you prop up traditional britisch Rollers (which are – AFAIK – only assembled in Britain, part supply would stop if BMW went under)! Welcome to the world of Globalisation…
What Briggsy (5) said!
You forget to mention the rise in ‘dealership deals’. I’ve been stalking a brand new VW Scirocco GT for the past month or so and on VW’s website my perfect Scirocco in the perfect colour with the extras I want would cost about £23k. I walk into the dealership, discuss this with VW and they say they can get the extras for me for: FREE. Since i’m not OTT with them (tip: go for interior things like satnav and cruise control rather than the panoramic sunroof) they happen to have such a car specced like that and it can go for the same price as an unspecced Scirocco GT. So now it’s just a matter of haggling on finance…
I do not see much oddity in this. The pound has recently lost a lot of its value but the car prices are still the old ones. It is only natural when you then compare prices, UK cars are “cheaper” by comparison.
When you convert the car prices into Euros with the old strong rate, you get the original price, which is higher than the continental price.
The only thing I want to say is this:
it’s not odd, it’s just the PERFECT moment RIGHT NOW to buy a good german car in the UK but only when you’re a “euro”pean. They will adjust their prices someday now I guess… but then it’s hard to stay competetive compared to UK manufactured cars.
Another problem is that “lefties” aren’t very practical in Europe. Problem start when you’re a lone driver coming to a parking entrance with a ticket machine… but maybe that shouldnt be an issue compared to the price fall.
i think this webbage is brill i love it
See it the other way round. It became a great opportunity to grab all those english silver tea sets, wedgwood, art, mahogany sideboards and whatever is left from those days when britain ruled the waves for not much more than, let´s say, the price a medium priced hungarian can of sausages. German car dealers will raise the prices sooner or later, because the Great British Krona will submerge like the Titanic, and as far as I can see, there are not many british Leylands left to buy british.
Talking about Leyland: I´ve been looking for an afforadable MGB Roadster for several years now. With the Übercrunch and all those guys moving and losing storage I can even go for an MGA and pay someone to convert it to LHD. That´s globalisation, too. So, you might pay for an Audi what you used to pay, but on the long run, Ingolstadt will be the place to be. Cause everyone wants an R8, but noone needs cityguys anymore.
Germans coming to Britain to buy German cars. How my Grandad would have laughed, first, then driven down to Dover in his Volvo that had an “I’m backing Britain” sticker on the rear window (don’t ask because I never found out) to see them off.
Of course the CO2 emission madness of this is the fact that the car is built in Germany, gets taken 450 odd miles to Blighty only to be bought by one of our German friends, who flew, drove or trained the 450 miles to Blightly in order to drive the car back 450 miles…
just to apppologyse for spellin my name rong earlyer, not very cule
I’m still struggling with the idea of ’saving’ money when buying yourself a brand new car costing more than £50K.
I’m afraid I’m still thinking about Terminator 3.
Mmmmmmmmm.
Now if only I had the money…
wars ,syrena 110 ,warszawa 210 ,beskid who know what is this
I noticed that it is not just german cars that are cheaper here I found that italian cars tend to be cheaper such as a Grande Punto Abarth is on sale here for £13,500 but in italy it is around £16.232 which is a impressive saving on a cheap but a very good car which in my opinion is the best in class for that price.
It’s cheaper for Irish owners to buy in the UK or the North, get a better warranty (valid across EU thanks to legislation) a better spec’d car save thousands of Euros. Second cars are even better value. With the pound loosing value every week the deals will only get better
i’m from germany and im pretty happy to hear things like that … maybe we’ll order a left hand driver porsche
…. see you soon when we’re coming through the channel tunnel may
i hope you never cancel this show it is the only program that is funny but still is good and not silly like fifth gear!!love a really big fan
What is stranger still is that German cars are still even cheaper in the US. the dollar value of the 911 turbo is 128,700 based upon Porsche.com. That would be equivelent to 86,280 Pounds, and 95,250.87 Euros. There has to be taxes added on I am sure, but considering transportation costs to the U.S. the difference seems very large.
I believe there is an option when buying a Porsche to spend extra money to collect the car straight from Ingolstadt…so Germans buying British-German cars could make use of that instead of travelling all the way to the UK.
Just a little food for thought!
What a load of tosh
this is based on stock being held at old exchange rates.
Once the stock has cleared the new stock being bought in by the stealers will have to cost more due to the exchange rate.
Look at what’s already happening in the electronics world. All the newly imported stuff going up in price.
http://www.avforums.com/f orums/blu-ray-dvd-players /878779-prices-new-year. html
I’ve got 25 euros left over from my French ski-ing holiday (my family’s lone crusade to bust the worldwide credit crucnh and further support the euro). Can I get an X5?
They can’t just put their prices up, that’s the whole point. Porsche sales are down 60% year on year already.
electronics haven’t been nearly as badly credit crunched, so there’s no comparison. Another £40 on a DVD player is irrelevant. try putting £20 thousand on a 911 retail price and see how many you sell.
Most of us have to partly finance a new car purchase through PX or similar. I guess my three year old A4 estate is worth zilch.
I’ll keep my money for now.
I’ll wait the pound drops to the point where Suzuki will pay me to own a Swift.
I figure by March we’ll be there.
Maybe jerry will ditch the Opels and come over to pick up the Vauxhalls.
oh no wait – no one buys either.
i think dat value is amazing might ave enough to get me a 911 in march
@ comment 12 (”Germans coming to Britain to buy German cars. How my Grandad would have laughed, first, then driven down to Dover in his Volvo that had an “I’m backing Britain” sticker on the rear window (don’t ask because I never found out) to see them off.”)
Don’t forget a CD of Winston Churchill’s “We’ll fight them on the beaches…” speech, played at full volume with the windows open.
Testing.
When is horse power blog coming to top gear website?
glad to see pics of x-bow up on the 1st page \.chriss evans up at 5 with the drive time show bbc radio 2.the weeks on a roll already thursday .rolls royce shares are up saw rooney |s new bently in the paper yesterday .1 minite in to the sck mrket and earnt enough to go shopping.have a nice dy
erm
can nobody, even nob gear see
no price difference, only for the europeans buying in uk OR did everyone in the uk this week get a substantial wage increase … otherwise on a uk salary nothing has changed or in this more bbc brainwashing tripe?
This year is getting better every day , having seen today the pictures of Ronaldo’s wrecked £200,000 Ferrari crashed at the side of the road.What a wally – doesnt he know the roads are icy when it is cold ? Thankfully he survives that without a scratch , but then he will writhe around on the pitch looking in agony when he is gently nudged to the ground by an opposition team player.I’ll get my coat !
I’m from Ireland and have been looking for a second hand X5 for a few months now. I can get an 06 for £17-19k in the UK. The same car is about 55,000 euros in Ireland. How much do the government want to charge me in tax to bring it into the country? 23,000 euros, so it would cost me more in VRT that I would actually pay for the car. The Irish government are gangsters.
LESS CARS MORE BIKES
ronaldo s damaged car will still fetch the value of a new one when it goes to aution .someone is going the want it in their garage if just to sit in .
wow it is good looking car may be it to fast
X5 shopper I totally agree the VRT is just a way for the FF gangsters to screw us! It’s amazing that even after paying the VRT you’ll still save about €10k. The only problem is selling your old car, no one wants to buy anything right now, otherwise I’d definitely be going North and trading up.
Spoke to a German mate of mine yesterday – said word was just getting out about UK prices…but German motoring press are basically house magazines for local manufacturers, and won’t print it..
mercedes slr stirling moss 672,000 hasnt a roof so if in the xk8 coupe on the track all windows are down will this add more downforce?
halfords have an offer 1million candlepower touch ideal for walking ,garage and outside use now 9.78
Ha-ha. What goes around….. as they say.
Hi
I am living in Switzerland and tried to buy a new Porsche 911 in the UK. However, the dealers won’t sell me a new LHD car. Does anyone now a UK dealer that sells LHD to foreigners?
Txs,
Rolf
@ Harleyrider1450(39): believe me the more bikes on the roads the much messier.
Sports cars are sooooooo cheap in the UK compared to Australia. Even after you compare the exchange rate, 2nd hand performance cars are 3 times the price you pay in the UK. A new 911 Turbo here costs $350,000 AUD which is approx £160,000. A 2nd hand 2002 / 996 Turbo with 60,000 miles would go for £100,000 in Australia.
I think the european market is safe from the return of continental cars from the island.
The trick the manufacturers made to prevent is quite ingenious,they mess up the driving position putting it in a way that no Italian wold think that 10% discount on a car, with the driving position on the right side, wold be a bargain.
still cars from the US are the ones to buy with a more appealing 30% discount now that they sell diesels (not that I ever owned a sparkless engine)
ciao from sunny Italy
u r gay
You can get a Turbo new in Canada for only 89 000 pounds (162000 CAD), and cheaper still in the states.