Now that Europe is one big unhappy family and may or may not have a common currency called the Euro, these price differences started to become vividly apparent. Political and consumer pressure grew, and finally the car companies caved and now there is a regular flow of releases outlining the latest change to a company's pricing policy or warranty length or standard equipment list or whatever.
This is still about the worst place in the European Union to buy a car, however, since it's still cheaper to buy most models in another country and bring them back on the ferry.
It's no wonder that this country with almost twice Canada's population buys not that many more new vehicles every year and that most of them are bought as company cars.
They also like to a much wider variety of cars to chose from and aren't afraid to buy cars from small volume companies. The former statement is made clear by the fact that there were more than 60 models making their UK debut here, and that there were debuts from companies that most of North America never heard of – Aixam, Ascari, Ecovec, Grinnali, Parradine, Perodua, Reliant and Trident.
Reliant may be known to some as the maker of the three-wheeled Robin, and both of you will be disappointed to learn that the company announced at the show that it was halting production of that very model in December.
This does not mean the British market is bereft of exotica and esoterica.