Originally Posted by PeeBee
Oh my... I think you should keep in mind that most countries ooutside of America DO have displacement taxes. I live in Belgium, and the magic "border" is indeed around 2 liter, everything above there, they tax you for the extra displacement you have, or if the hp is too high, on the hp.
To give you an idea: somewhere in some dark ministery some people decided we would all be better of if we would drive small displacement, high output engines.
I drive a 2.7 TVD6 Range Sport as daily driver. Compared to someone driving a < 2 liter diesel, I pay about 800 EUR a year "volumetric tax". Which in itself is a joke as they base the tax on the hp the car has (190 "official" hp is way too high for those same people, so they decide I should pay taxes for a 3 liter diesel instead of a 2.7, based on the hp).
You can see this also reflected in the company cars that are offered over here. Few years ago, when I wasn't running my own company yet, I had as a "standard car" the choice between the "big" 3 Germans (Merc, Audi, BMW), all of them were around 2 liters, with a few exceptions where I was allowed a 3 liter diesel (330d and X5).
If I look now at the customer I'm working for, the people there get offered a 1.3 or 1.4 diesel as company car, and they have to pay a contribution about the same as I did about 7 years ago.
Coming back to your example, LS7 vs 4.3: both would cost you 5k EUR "inscription tax" in Belgium, yearly tax would be about 1900 for the LS7, 1400 for the 4.3. So yes, I can see the reason why people want low displacement, high hp engines: to avoid some taxes, and still have some fun while driving.
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