"Schaefft" (Schaefft)
03/15/2015 at 09:58 • Filed to: Schaefft, Lincoln, Mark, VIII, Luxo, Barge, Yacht, Awesomeness
10
18|
"Schaefft" (Schaefft)
03/15/2015 at 09:58 • Filed to: Schaefft, Lincoln, Mark, VIII, Luxo, Barge, Yacht, Awesomeness | 10
| 18 |
Aaand we are back! Oh yeah, you heard right, this is part 3 of the soul crushing amazing journey to automotive Valhalla, a place I am hoping to reach one day by bringing back a neglected 17.4 foot American luxury coupe and making it my daily driver here on the old continent that is Europe.
If you read my previous two articles, you will have learned about !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and which !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! have led up to my current situation. This time I will explain why the UK is such a fantastic and at the same time horrible place to buy a large luxury car and why it is the reason I ended up with the car I call my own now.
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
So after buying the Xedos 6 ( !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , early 90's Mazda yay!) and moving to the United Kingdom to start at my new job, things started to calm down a bit again. I was happy to have found a job I genuinely enjoy and plenty of people that shared my interest addiction to cars. And even though I missed all my appointments the the realtor because of my slightly delayed arrival in the UK (only two weeks) and had to stay at a friends place for another 2 weeks, I eventually found the perfect apartment with plenty of parking spaces and close to the studio, which made things much easier and was pretty much the opposite to the situation I had in Vienna (not that it made any difference to my choice of cars). As you can imagine, it didn't take long before I thought about getting another Mark VIII. The only issue: I am living in the UK now.
There are quite a few things unique to the UK when it comes to owing a car. And I am not taking about driving on the wrong side if the road (sorry to our UK opponauts), which you get used to very quickly. Watching shows like Wheeler Dealers or seeing people posting links to British used car classifieds, many of you probably have noticed how dirt cheap older cars are over here, especially if they are high performance luxury cars. Have a few nice examples: Interested in a clean 2002 Mercedes CL500 with 99.000 miles for under 4 grand?, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! A 1998 Jaguar XK8 with 73.000 miles for 3500 bucks, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! How about a 2000 BMW E39 M5 with 98.000 miles for 7990? !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! The list goes !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
None of these cars are exceptions. None of them took longer than 20 seconds to find. All cars posted here would easily cost twice as much in another major car market just a few hundreds miles south east from here, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Having registered cars in both countries before, its not hard to see why.
People from the UK are always quick to comment why nobody is willing to buy these cars: Expensive fuel, high taxes and maintenance costs. While these reasons are true and can indeed be a challenge, they are no explanation why these cars, out of all places, are so much cheaper in Britain. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (the weak Euro is distorting prices in non-euro zone countries slightly right now), so is maintenance and so are the tax rates, if not higher. If those factors are not the issue, what is? Here are the real two major reasons why cars in the UK are so freaking cheap:
1.) The UK is a right hand drive market.
Have you ever wondered where people living in 3rd World countries get their millions of cars from while vehicle sales numbers clearly indicate that barely anything is actually sold there when new? Just like in the States or Japan, many cars start a second life overseas once they reach a certain age and bottom line value here in Europe. While !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! leave Germany every year to end up in places like central Africa, Eastern Europe or the Middle East (Afghanistan !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Iraqi assassins dig !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! !), even there barely anyone would buy a vehicle with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car. And why should they? The continental European car market is huge. While I was still living in Germany, it wasn't uncommon to get contacted by someone with an Arabic accent only minutes after posting the ad online. Me and my brother sold many of our old cars to people with Middle Eastern origin (and surprisingly "relaxed" quality standards) who usually exported each vehicle shortly after they paid us, together with boat loads of more cars from all over the country. Fortunately for us, these people usually bought pretty much anything, no matter what shape it was in. You could have sold them a potato as long as it had AC and power windows.
Serious rust in critical structural areas? No problem. Leaking fuel lines and expired inspection? Who cares!. While I struggled here in the UK for months to sell a somewhat rusty but otherwise very clean BMW E38 for 700GBP , I sold my rusty as hell Honda Civic parked outside my parents house before I could even post the ad. One of them went to Africa, you can probably guess which one. With this huge chunk of the potential market for "old" cars gone in the UK, the car supply vastly exceeds the demand, resulting in plummeting car values.
2.) UK Car insurance premiums for young drivers are completely insane.
You cannot sell your cheap clunker to export markets, who else with no money would need cheap, affordable transportation? Let me think... Hmmmmmm...Aha, young people! Of course, they never have money and cannot wait to get behind the wheel. Woahwoahwoah, not so fast! People under 25 might need cheap transportation and most would be able to afford your car, road tax and the fuel bills. But what about insuraaaanceee ? Well, too bad! The UK might be one of the most expensive places on earth for young people to insure a car. Yearly insurance premiums are so excessive, they can easily exceed the value of the car by 5-10 times, every single year of ownership!! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! That means another large demographic just got cut off from your potential target market. That also means your car is worth shit now.
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
While normally these two reasons would make the UK a paradise for anyone looking for used cars or car parts , all these cheap vehicles are pretty much unobtainable for anyone who doesn't have a decade of trouble free driving experience with an insurance record to back it up, for anyone moving to the UK who is used to driving on the right side of the road (people from the other side of the channel must be a bigger threat now than during WW2) or anyone under a certain age. Unfortunately for me, I met none of these requirements, with the logical consequences.
You want an example? I bought my '97 E38 728i automatic for 500GBP from a colleague at work, believing I have found the bargain of the century. What I didn't know until later, the cheapest quote I would get from a major insurance provider comparison site was in the neighborhood of 5000GBP per annum. What.The.Actual.Fuck. And wait, there's more! The cheapest quote I got for my LHD 290hp 4.6L V8 Lincoln? 14000GBP. Fourteenthousand Pound Sterling per year. What is this insanity? Are they really expecting me to total my car 10 times per year??
It was clear that I couldn't afford to register and insure my car in the UK, atleast if it wasn't something with a microscopic 5hp engine like a 1990 Daihatsu Cuore or similar. Oh wait, if you are unlucky that's a JDM spec vehicle, might as well slap another 50% on top of your already excessive premiums!
Your ride for the next 5 years. If you are lucky...
Well, not with me. They can rip off other people, I sure as hell wont accept this bs. Not being able to insure my future Mark VIII in the country I am living in was a setback and cause for a lot of hurdles. It means that I would have to register and insure the car in Germany, which left me with two options for my purchase: Buy the Mark VIII in Germany while on holiday, register and insure it in my name and drive it back to the UK. Or buy it here for potentially much less, if I can find one, export it to Germany and go through the lengthy pains of the German homologation process before being able to register the car for public road usage, insure it and drive it back. You would think the answer was obvious. Why this actually wasn't the case and how I finally bought my new Lincoln Mark VIII, well I guess you'll have to wait for the next chapter...
I hope you liked the article, as promised its much shorter this time! Tell me what you think in the comments its always great to hear your opinions!
Schaefft is the author of the Lincoln Luxo Barge in Europe series and founder of nothing. He's currently living in the north east of the UK (u wot m8?), owns an old Bmw and Lincoln and believes that everything that is written on the internet is true, especially Tavarish's articles on Jalopnik about how owning a cheap luxury car for the price of a potato is the only way of living. It took him way too long to write this article so you better read it to the end or else...
Cé hé sin
> Schaefft
03/15/2015 at 10:52 |
|
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
I think you'll find that it isn't! You meant:
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
|
Schaefft
> Cé hé sin
03/15/2015 at 10:56 |
|
Ah you are right, fixed it!
|
Cé hé sin
> Schaefft
03/15/2015 at 10:58 |
|
So as I see it you plan to buy a car, take it to Germany and insure it for use in Britain, where you actually live. You'd want to check the implications of this as insurance in Germany may not give you long term cover outside the country.
|
Schaefft
> Cé hé sin
03/15/2015 at 11:06 |
|
My primary residence is still located in Germany. Fortunately, my insurance company has been very obliging so far, I give them a lot of credit for that. Pretty much the opposite of what you'd find here in the UK.
duurtlang
> Schaefft
03/15/2015 at 14:34 |
|
What I never understood was why insurance rates are so insane in the UK. I can't think of a single reason, especially compared to a somewhat similar country as Germany.
|
Schaefft
> duurtlang
03/15/2015 at 15:24 |
|
I don't get it either. I usually get told the reason for this is young people getting into so many traffic accidents. Unless people born in Britain are worse drivers than the rest of Europe from nature, I don't see how this would be any different from anywhere else. I guess, just like other issues like total public surveillance and tracking of everyone's license plates wherever you go, people just don't care about it and see it as a completely normal thing.
ranwhenparked
> duurtlang
03/15/2015 at 15:33 |
|
I think it comes down to the old Rip Off Britain/Treasure Island situation. Everything costs more in Britain because Britons are willing to pay more for everything. Profit.
QQXQXL123
> Schaefft
04/05/2015 at 10:28 |
|
Custom paint job represents a modification - this will increase your insurance premium.
|
QQXQXL123
> Schaefft
04/05/2015 at 10:35 |
|
The UK's insurance is stupid since it weights both for the car and the driver. So there are a few things you can do. Firstly, exchange your German licence for a British one, which will give around a 40% reduction based on my friends. Secondly, insure a second person on the car as a named driver, and make sure they're British, over 40, and have had at least five years of claims and ticket-free motoring. That will reduce the premium a bit more.
Also, the insurance comparison sites don't include the insurers who cover "special" cars.
http://www.performancedirect.co.uk
And you should get some reasonable prices.
|
Schaefft
> QQXQXL123
04/05/2015 at 13:07 |
|
That's right, dammit...
|
Schaefft
> QQXQXL123
04/05/2015 at 13:15 |
|
A colleague of mine from Singapore (I think) mentioned getting a British drivers license to get his premiums down, I thought this was only the case because he was moving from outside the EU. I'm not sure if I wanna do this though since you can never tell when you might want to move back again. Also I don't know anyone British over 40, especially anyone without tickets or claims. I tried Adrian Flux about 2 years ago, I think the issue back then was that I wasn't a permanent resident in the UK, or at least that's what I thought I was.
|
QQXQXL123
> Schaefft
04/05/2015 at 16:20 |
|
It made a big difference to colleagues in my office - 50% or so off the premium. I'm not sure it's entirely legal, but I saw the numbers - you can try it in the insurance websites and see what a difference it makes. You'll probably want to check but I think you should be able to convert back to a German licence without taking a test. That should be a big help for getting the insurance down. The other thing is that after a year of claim free driving the premium will drop a lot again as well.
Even if you can't adopt an old person, even a younger person with some driving experience and a relatively clean history should help you get a lower premium for the first year.
|
Schaefft
> QQXQXL123
04/05/2015 at 16:35 |
|
Well, I'll keep it in mind! I got the Lincoln here in Germany now, if I am lucky it'll be registered by the end of next week. I won't have to worry about UK insurance premiums for a long time then.
Z28DUNC
> Schaefft
04/07/2015 at 10:44 |
|
How old are you?
|
Schaefft
> Z28DUNC
04/07/2015 at 13:02 |
|
25
Dave Smith
> QQXQXL123
04/08/2015 at 03:14 |
|
I'll second that. Adrian Flux was the only place that would give me a quote for an imported Turbo Legacy. Everywhere else wanted me to wait until I was 55 or something.
|
Z28DUNC
> Schaefft
04/08/2015 at 10:41 |
|
Thats weird then. I would expect it to be expensive to insure but not that silly. Maybe its the fact you have no no claims or haven't been driving in this country for long? It cost me £950 to insure a 97' Camaro Z28 when I was 23 (7 yrs ago now). However I'd had a license since 17 and had a couple of years no claims.
Insurance on cars is a massive con in this country. Bikes are much cheaper, £75 for a year woohoo!
|
Schaefft
> Z28DUNC
04/08/2015 at 11:34 |
|
I was 23 when I called Adrian Flux and the others (before I bought the car), so it might be a bit different now. I got my license with 18 but didn't have a chance to build up many years of no claims since I didn't have my own car until 2011 I think. I'd like to get a proper bike some day but I know the day I buy something thats not a moped, I can schedule my funeral.