It is typically more expensive to buy a new car in Portugal. It is very difficult to find a new car in Portugal unless it is a small new car that costs under € 10,000 (about US $ 10,800 or £ 7,370). Most new cars when compared to the UK, will be at a premium of about 25% to 30% and when compared to the US, will be at a premium of about 40% to 50%.
The market for second hand cars hardly existed until about 5 years ago and now there are about three or four specialists but it is still more expensive than buying a second hand car in the US, where you could into Daytona Beach and buy a pickup truck for US $500 (€ 460 or £ 340). You can’t do that in Portugal. A fairly nice condition, second hand car would cost about €5,000 (US $ 5,500 or £ 3,700). Vehicle taxes in Portugal are astronomical; they are the highest in Europe.
I am not really certain why we didn’t have a second hand car market in Portugal until recently but I think it is partly cultural and partly as a result of legislation. Culturally, even though Portugal is not a wealthy nation, it hates to buy things that are second hand. If you offer somebody second hand clothes, for example, they will look at you lop-sided because they consider that pretty much an insult. Until recently, any second hand items of any nature were frowned upon, whereas, if you go to England, for example, second hand sales are all the rage. In Portugal, that was frowned upon. I think that extended to vehicles. Vehicles are seen as a status symbol so people do not like to be seen in second hand cars.
The other thing was that the taxation process, in terms of imported vehicles is so onerous. There are such high taxes in terms of imported vehicles that it just didn’t pay to import and to buy an imported, nice second hand car because the price would be too close to brand new cars. Only in the course of the last few years has that appeared to change.
(Fiat Cinquecento in Portugal, pictured.)
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