Avant = Delivery van?

[Tom Nas]

"ccohen5" <ccohen5 at compuserve.com> wrote:

>Someone on the list mentioned that in Norway the Avant can be registered as
>a commercial vehicle presumably for a tax break.  How prevalent is that in
>Europe?  I know for example that every ship owner used to be able to import
>a vehicle as a tender to their ship free of the 120% import tax.  Naturally
>there were many Ferrari/RR/Merc/BMW and presumably Audis.
>
>Another concept that is similar applies to SUVs which can function as
>commercial vehicles but are never employed this way.

We used to have this loophole in Holland but they tightened the rules- used
to be that you could take the rear seat out and board up the rear windows
and everything with a hatchback was a van- Nissan Silvia Turbo, Renault 5
GT turbo, etc. The new rules stated minimal loading area dimensions. Now,
you can still run a larger station wagon as a van but you need a full
division between the loading area and the cabin and, in order to meet
loading heigth requirements, a ridiculous-looking inverted bathtub roof
extension. So uncool that most people who want a van for the tax break or
the room now actually buy a van (M-B Vito, VW Transporter etc) and the
others just drive cars. You should see some of the embarrassing
contraptions they sold here to make some cars comply...

You save twice here in Holland- once on the purchase (you don't pay the
40+% special car tax) and from then on every month on your road tax, which
goes by vehicle weight. Considerable savings on both.

I've never seen such extraordinary vehicles in Belgium, Germany or France.

Tom