Why Brexit Has Created the Perfect Economic Environment to Import a Car from the UK

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Why Brexit Has Created the Perfect Economic Environment to Import a Car from the UK

Posted on June 28, 2016 – Automobile Industry News

Although there are plenty of howls of suffering out of Europe at the moment in the wake of the UK’s decision to quit the EU, Brexit has prompted a rush in New Zealand for importing British vehicles.

Sterling’s immediate fall in value – a Kiwi dollar bought you around 48.5p on Thursday before heading north to 53p on Friday afternoon and settling over the weekend to around 52p – prompted plenty of would-be importers to cash in.

McCullough Ltd General Manager Joe Steele said the company had seen a large increase in the number of enquiries.

“It’s all back on again,” he said. “There’s been a lot of people purchasing over the past few days, we’ve been flat out with motorhomes and caravans and high end cars. Everyone is enquiring so it really turned around again over night.”

The volatility and uncertainty in Europe following the Brexit referendum has had plenty of commentators frothing at the mouth over the future of car manufacturing in the UK. And when you look at the numbers, you can see why they’re worried:

• Toyota shipped 75% of its 190,000 vehicles made in the UK to the EU last year.
• More than 50% of Nissan’s 475,000 vehicles made in the UK last year were shipped to the EU.

So you can see that, without the free trade agreements that membership of the EU brought, the future of the motor industry in the UK is under a pretty large black cloud. And, to compound matters, because some of those archetypal Brit brands such as Mini, Rolls-Royce, Jaguar and Bentley are now owned by overseas companies, there’s a fair chance that they could end up being wholly built outside the UK and start costing more to buy in the UK.

If the big car manufacturers move out of the UK to avoid potential tariffs, that would leave only the likes of small factories such as Morgan to prop up what was once an industry which employed hundreds of thousands and earned the country tens of billions of pounds.

Quite simply, it’s a bit of a mess at the moment and there are few pundits who would even hazard a guess at what the whole Brexit decision will mean for buying cars in the UK.

But, for now, the silver lining in the Brexit cloud is being enjoyed by exporters and companies such as Rolls-Royce, which generates two-thirds of its revenue and three-quarters of its order books outside Europe, have even seen their shares rise.

Considering importing a vehicle from the UK?

Joe said that if you’ve been umm-ing and aah-ing about bringing in a vehicle from the UK, now is the perfect time to make the most of the exchange rate.

McCullough has tried and tested systems in place for sourcing vehicles such as caravans and motorhomes in the UK as well as proven expertise in arranging transport, checks, paperwork and logistics around importing any vehicles out of UK ports. So while all those systems are in place and before any potential rise in the cost of vehicles in the UK, it makes sense to use McCullough to cash in on what is a perfect storm for New Zealand vehicle importers.

“When you get to the stage of having the dollar worth 45p or 46p then the market simply stops because you’re not saving any money to import a vehicle, so some people did jump in when the dollar was at 48p because they worried that it would fall even lower if the referendum chose to stay in the EU,” he said. “But now that they’ve voted to leave, it really has become a great time. The move from 48p to 52p in a day is unheard of – it basically means you can save thousands of dollars immediately on the cost of importing a vehicle – so, all of a sudden, we had a rush of people wanting to talk to us.

“We started to get calls as soon as the result of the referendum was clear – and straight away over the weekend we were having enquiries about importing cars.

“The UK is certainly back on again so there are pluses and minuses for everybody when it comes to Brexit – but it’s a great time to be buying anything out of the UK.”

For more information on how we can help you cash in on the low cost of bringing a car, caravan or motorhome into New Zealand from the UK – even how we can help you source a new caravan or motorhome from overseas – call us on +64 9 303 0075

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