I see that a basic C Class model in the Uk is about £23000, the equivilant car in thailand seems to be about £55,000, so over double. ( (c200). is this due to cost of importing and tax?? cars seem very expensive in thailand,

Yes.

C class is made in Thailand, so is some BMW but they are still expensive

Yes.

No

Benz manufactor A, C, E and S class models in LOS, from 2 to 11 mill baht retailprice. They are unlike Honda, Toyota and some others made from imported parts to be taxed(CKD), but the major reason for the price is marketpositioning. People in Thailand is willing to pay a remarkable price for premium brands.

For the C class Benz actually use a 1800cc kompressorengine ( I believe they havent changed to the 1800cc turbo in E class yet) able to run E 20 to keep taxes as low as possible. Excice tax only 25%, compared to 50% for a larger displacement engine

yep import taxes and duties make the car expensive,

yep import taxes and duties make the car expensive,

import taxes and duties for a thai made car? 25% excice tax is less than Camry 2,4, Accord 2,4 and so on

Yes.

No

Benz manufactor A, C, E and S class models in LOS, from 2 to 11 mill baht retailprice. They are unlike Honda, Toyota and some others made from imported parts to be taxed(CKD), but the major reason for the price is marketpositioning. People in Thailand is willing to pay a remarkable price for premium brands.

For the C class Benz actually use a 1800cc kompressorengine ( I believe they havent changed to the 1800cc turbo in E class yet) able to run E 20 to keep taxes as low as possible. Excice tax only 25%, compared to 50% for a larger displacement engine

MB and their Thai agents must be laughing all the way to the bank!!

Yes.

No

Benz manufactor A, C, E and S class models in LOS, from 2 to 11 mill baht retailprice. They are unlike Honda, Toyota and some others made from imported parts to be taxed(CKD), but the major reason for the price is marketpositioning. People in Thailand is willing to pay a remarkable price for premium brands.

For the C class Benz actually use a 1800cc kompressorengine ( I believe they havent changed to the 1800cc turbo in E class yet) able to run E 20 to keep taxes as low as possible. Excice tax only 25%, compared to 50% for a larger displacement engine

MB and their Thai agents must be laughing all the way to the bank!!

yepp, I would. Remarkable profit pr unit and large share of the market

If you're a seller of premium items, whether it's cars, watches or handbags, you've got to love face in Asla.

It seems cars here are priced acording to some sort of percieved desirability scale. With the small engine, low bhp mini overpriced just like all MB's.

Unfortunately we don't get the full spectrum of nice cars here. It's dressed up as being due to lack of local demand for non mainstream cars, or not in line with local car fashions etc, but it has more to do with what the local distributors are prepared to import and sell and almost no knowledge from local consumers that these big car brands have more like 30 cars in their range and not just the 3 or 4 we get here.

The problem starts with automatic vs manual. With auto as the preference and manual for taxis (ie poor people) this limited the volume of manual imports in the 80's (when the market started to mature for the massess) set the trend for auto's. Followed by a prefernce for saloon / sedan bodyshape over coupe and hatchback and the mindset that saloons are more fashionable - i.e. volvo, BMW, MB etc dripped down to accords and camry's (as these premium brands had so few hatchback & coupe's at entry level in the 80's & 90's we had less imported) then you can see why we are left with a dearth of choice today as current imports are predominatly auto saloons in silver.

In the mid 90's the roads were full of Honda preludes, Toyota celicas & Hyundai Tiburons. I had on of the coupes here then and as manual. They all thought I was mad or could'nt afford an auto! I would never had sold it had I know that today there are no coupes to buy as we are today Thai's don't like them!!

Shock horror - but great coupes back then cost from new THB 700k to about 1.5m. The BMW 3 series compact was THB 1m - so what has gone wrong? they pretend its taxes and excahnge rates....its not, not anymore as the currency has almost corrected to pre June 97 levels...

fashion drip fed by importers and narrow minded consumers has shaped the dull market place we have today...