Clatterman
Thank you for your compliment.
This car is canyon red. I had to edit the colours on the picture of the interior to compensate for the green cast on the interior fabric that is caused by the window tint..
Norman
(1) Yes and no. Generally in the UK the dealers carry larger stocks of new cars with the common options than in Germany.
Customers test-drive a car, then put in an order. If they want something fairly standard then it will be in a showroom somewhere or "in the pipeline" ie on order and the delivery time will be quick. On the other hand if you want something special like my car (which had about ten options,) then the dealer will warn you of an extended delay. VW's do not do this because at present they can sell every car they make.
(2) In the "European Union" you are allowed to order a car to your own country's specification from an authorised dealer in any EU country you want, provided the car is available in your country. Car manufacturers did not like this because their before-tax prices vary from country to country, and they do not want, say the British buying cars in Belgium, where cars are cheaper before tax. Because of this the car manufacturers used various devices to control the market. VW paid the price when the European market fined them about USD$130,000,000 for making it hard for Germans to buy cars in Italy.
I saved around £3300 (USD $5300) by buying my car in Belgium, (where cars are fairly cheap) rather than the UK where they are generally the most expensive in the EU. Options cost much the same everywhere. In Holland they are cheaper, but at present they are cheapest in Finland. I went to Belgium because it's only 110 miles from London to the Belgian border, but Finland must be nearer 1000 miles. The only real remaining difficulty with buying a car from abroad is the handbook. The first page of mine starts
"Het bejzondere hieraan is, dat voor de bepaling van de onderhoudsintervallen rekening word gehouden met de spefieke gebruiksomstandigheden en de persoonlijke rijstijl van de bestuurder." Unless you can speak Flemish, Dutch or German it will not be obvious this tells you about the new service intervals of up to 50,000 km coming in soon (but not applicable to my car.)
[This message has been edited by Craig Blum (edited December 04, 1999).]
[This message has been edited by Craig Blum (edited December 04, 1999).]
