I went to the Turkey Run on thursday and took a few piccies of motoring Americana. This is the biggest drive to and autojumble event in the S.E. USA and is always held over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Be patient I will put up a few pics as time allows.

I'm new to the whole American car thing, I'm more your NEC Classic Car show kind of person. So this was a bit of an experience for me, however there were a few white skinned Brits in evidence and judging by the prices of some of the indigenous septic automobiles I can see why the place would be attractive to dealers from euro-land. I saw absolutely mint, fully restored early 30's Fords for around 15 to 20 in GB pounds. Corvettes, silly money cars for around 5 grand UK. The most expensive cars seemed to be the top of the range hot rods that would put Coddington to shame.

American cars have always been very good value for money - if you like that sort of thing. The trouble is, and always has been, the hassle and potential cost of importing and owning them in the UK.

I am an American living here in the UK for the past year now, I can tell you first hand that NEW car prices here are just plain ridiculous here. The same car with the same options is anywhere between 20-50% more expensive here in the UK (depending on the model), even after taking taxes and other stuff into consideration. Of course, I see a similar trend with other good as well. Usually, they seem to take $ sign out, drop in the £ sign without a big change in the base cost, accounting for the exchange difference.

Hell, I have a 2010 Mustang GT w/ 5.0L 415hp fully loaded car back home, which cost me about the same as a new Ford Focus here (~$30K). Sure, the dash might not have the greatest plastic feel quality to it, but that's fine with me. Even the brand new 2012 Ford Focus specced to a similar level costs about 25% more here.

USED car prices for the UK however are actually good, probably because of the fact that RHD cars are not in great demand on the continent.

The other issue with yank cars in UK is that they just are not designed for this country. US parking bays are huge. An average yank tank wouldnt fit in an average UK parking bay. Until very recently they also didnt really give a hoot about fuel consumption. As a further point, in comparison to Euro cars they tend to have a poor ratio of handling to power.