Car Ownership Advice

[marcuscurran]

Hi everyone,

My name is Marcus and I currently live in Sydney, Australia. From the middle of next year however myself and my girlfriend will be moving over to London or its surrounding area for a couple of years. The plan is to eventually buy a car over there (been dreaming of driving around Europe for years and years now) but I thought I should ask about the basics as I would imagine the ownership logistics will be different to Australia.

In terms of registration, insurance and all the other boring stuff to get the car on the road what is the process? The plan will be to get a car after we have found a place to live.

Also I am curious as to what you guys think I should buy? I love hot hatches and know that they would fill the purpose of what I want (long days on the road, mountain roads, open countryside driving, etc) but I'm open to most European cars.

Thanks in advance, I can't wait to see what people will say.

[marcuscurran]

Okay awesome. That's very useful information, sounds pretty easy compared to here.

Yeah I was planning on getting a French hot hatch, perhaps a Clio 182. Sure I could get one for under £5,000 there pretty easily.

[marcuscurran]

Thanks so much for everyone's response, they have all been so helpful. Sounds like it should be a breeze.

Interesting what people are saying about the Clio driving position, I'll have to sit in one here before I go over. What would other people suggest that would have reasonable running costs for under £5,000?

[marcuscurran]

All fantastic thoughts from everyone. The car if we do end up in central London will be purely for weekend trips. I am only 20 at the moment so every rental company, if it's the same as Australia won't allow me to drive the car until I'm 25 unfortunately so that rules out that idea which is a shame.

I'm loving this Clio - http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/r...
4821740

[marcuscurran]

Wow okay, that's definitely something to consider. We are both open to looking outside of London which should hopefully bring the price down. Definitely food for thought though.

[marcuscurran]

So it seems like I should give it a bit more thought than I had originally planned.

The plan is to go over there and work casually in any field at the moment, neither of us are fussy as we are just going over to experience new things so we aren't bound to a particular location or job, etc.

I really appreciate everyone's input though, it's very helpful!