Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Entire nation of Ireland: "Hold my beer"

** 21 year old first time driver in Ireland could expect to pay around €4,000 for the first year...

I’m Norn Iron.

Woah, ok, that's even more than I paid for comprehensive a far more expensive car a couple of years ago (although I was over 30 too...). Any motorcyclists will probably have horror stories as well.

Isn't your tax crazy over there as well?

Absolutely insane. My 2.0 Forester is currently €710/ year and will be €1809/ year after engine swap.

£2k for my first year owning a 205 GTi. Mid-20s, no NCB, in London, parked on the street.

When was that?

Down south. It's absolute robbery down here!

When?? 😁

Examples here and here.It's nothing unusual down here. Both of these articles are in relation to returning expats but it's the same for first time drivers.

I imagine my £2200 in 1989 equates to that. Nightmare. My Scottish mates made me really jealous.

Yeah that's fairly painful alright! I would have thought it wouldn't be quite so bad north of the border actually! At least you have cheaper road tax and no VRT though 🤷🏻‍♂️

Don’t start me on road tax!!! 😂😂😂 Roads here are atrocious - my mechanic mate fixed four cars last week with broken suspension due to the roads. My car is with him right now for suspension issue. My mate wants him to look at his car because of .... Girl I work with broke a spring last week. I do a bit of walking and I see bits of springs all over the place. Roads in the North - roads!!!! Tracks more like. Don’t start me 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

But you are right - cheaper - maybe for a reason !

They had loads of the morris marina bits on them. One of my mates bought an oldish one in the late 80's. It had a kit car build quality. Totally British manufacturing at its most hit and miss. The other brave roll of the dice in that era was the Rover 3.5 sdi.

£600 odd quid doesn’t feel quite so terrible now!

The great thing about turning 50 was that the insurance on my 400BHP methanol injected Impreza was about a tenth of the insurance of my Astra GTE mentioned above, not to mention the inflation over the last 25 years!

£1200 for my first year of car ownership, though not of licence holding or being old enough to buy alcohol. On street in Brockley.

It was a £400 Saab, although I remember trying all sorts of cars including much posher ones and none of them made much difference to the quote.

How rotten was the chassis? They didn't get any better iwhen they were 10 years older. The elite and éclat were lotus trying to go up market.

Oi I liked the sd1

First car I had was my Triumph GT6, aged 21, early 2000's. It cost about £150 to insure fully comp on classic insurance. I remember calling the insurer (Footman James?) several times before I finally bought it to check as it was so cheap compared to anything more modern (and less fun).

I'm not sure if that's still a viable route for young drivers nowadays but back then it was far cheaper compared the usual old Fiesta's and Corsa's my mates all had.

Insurance on the RS6 at the moment is about £400 p.a. If/when I get the stage 1 remap up to 700bhp it'll be a tad over £500. Given that the increase in horsepower will be more than the 205 had to start with, that seems like a bargain. Benefits of being old/outside London/off-street parking/monster NCB.

I'm insured with Footman James on the Traaaaaav. £85 a year but minimum age 25.

Old git insurance: £250 for a 3.0i Z4 out of town ORP.

First year having a car in Toronto, I paid $5000 on a 10 year old VW Bora that I paid the same for.

550 bhp E63, £600 in London, parked outside.

300 bhp 911, £450 in London, garaged.

I don’t know what the uplift would be if I got the E63 to stage 1/700 bhp, but when I asked about the 911 (which is in the process of going to 3.7 litres and an unknown but hopefully decent increase) my insurer said “no change”.

minimum age 25

Aah - maybe that's closed the door. Back then it did seem like a substantial loophole - relatively big engined, fairly unsafe car, insured cheap for a new driver!