UK wins price war
The UK boasts some of the lowest new performance car prices
The latest, wild currency fluctuations in the financial markets have thrown manufacturers’ longstanding price differentials between individual sales regions into turmoil. Add in the effect of the UK’s recent VAT reduction and the result is the UK now has some of the cheapest new car prices in the world.
Starting at the top; a Ferrari 599 GTB costs £193,234 here in the UK, $317,595 (£211,730) in the US and a whopping 245,651 euros (£229,580) in Italy. That’s a radical reversal of fortunes in favour of the UK buyer who saves £36,346 compared to the person who bought from the Italian dealer just down the road from the Ferrari factory.
It’s not just supercars that are the bargains either; take the supercharged 4.2-litre version of Jaguar’s latest mid-sized saloon, the XF SV8, that sells here for £53,753. OK, the US buyers only have to pay the equivalent of £43,271 ($64,475) but over in Europe the list price balloons up to 84,951 euros or £79,393, some 47 per cent more expensive than it costs here in the UK.
The overall saving for UK sourced cars, in relation to buying them in Italy or Germany, is around 38 per cent for BMW, 36 per cent for Audi and 32 per cent for Mercedes, meaning the days of rip-off Britain are long gone. And all thanks to some of the dramatic changes brought about by the credit crunch.
