Heh, they’re dirt cheap because no one wants them. I have a £500 Neon that I use to drive to and from the airport, abandoning it for around six to eight weeks at a time. I don’t care if it gets the odd scratch, no one will steal it and it never fails to start. (Although the engine and gearbox are about the only…

Completely agree. For long-distance cruising at 70 or 80, though....

Category ‘C’ - been involved in a nasty accident and fixed. Avoid. Category ‘D’ - been involved in minor shunt that was enough for the insurance company to write it off, but probably ok. Needs a pro inspection to be sure.

I think that’s because depreciation in the US is considerably lower than the UK. Pick the wrong car/colour combination here and you can see 50-60% of your purchase price wiped out in 3 years.

Have a play with it and pick a price you’d pay for a used car in dollars- take about a third off that figure, stuff it into the website and see what comes up.

It was a succession of civilian flights into Colorado and I do remember thinking ‘this looks nothing like TV!’ Still, young and naive back then.

Cheap, second-hand cars a few years old. You can buy a three year old car here for half the price it left the dealer, even less if you pick a luxo-barge.

I wouldn’t be allowed to do this now, on pain of deportation, death by stoning or something, but I have an odd fascination with retiring to a big wooden house in the States with a porch, enjoying the weather, cooking incredibly unhealthy but awesome BBQ and just watching the world go by.

It’s hugely interesting to see an American visitor disappointed by British cars on the street. They’re average cars for average income people doing average jobs who need to get around at a price they can afford.

Indeed - I’m surprised this wasn’t brought up, even obliquely, in the original article.

That’s an excellent analysis and one I hadn’t previously considered. I believe I am more au fait with the region than many in than West, but some areas of the politics and conflict are impenetrable to foreign eyes.

No, the photo isn’t fake. The unit depicted does have strong, confirmed links to the far right and Nazi sympathies but you’re looking at less than 20 men.

There’s more at stake here and Crimea is lost - gone. Forget that when talking about the situation to be honest. I could, quite seriously, type page after page of reasoning and I doubt anyone would read it. This is Europe’s first major test since the breakup of Yugoslavia and we’re failing. Again.

Mmmm... aesthetics is very subjective, and I’m all for ‘if you think it’s art, it’s art’ but... I’m struggling here. I’m really struggling!

It’s hard to explain the depths of feelings for territory ownership and racial hatred in some areas of Eastern Europe to US readers. The current situation in the Ukraine is not quite akin to the breakup of Yugoslavia (that’s one hell of a rabbit hole if you want to research it) but we’re looking at conflicts that have…

Exactly - you want this class of car and you want a BMW? X5!

I’ll defend my choice once, and only once.

It’s a situation that can only really be judged country by country. I do tend to get the impression that some US folks think that Europe is a bit like the USA with the federal govt. being represented by the EU and each state’s administration being represented by a country’s individual govt.

The first part of your paragraph is spot on. Any refusal by the USA to respond to NATO requests for assistance in the event of a Crimea-like event happening in the Baltics would spell the end of the organisation. It might soldier on until a replacement Euro treaty could be organised, but it would effectively be dead.

It’s an Australian car that Vauxhall imports here in limited numbers, takes the Holden badge off, and glues on the griffin. The badge is probably manufactured in China so the only thing British about the Vauxhall is the paperwork.