Last week I posted a picture of the showroom of a Dutch Datsun dealership and I remembered I also got a genuine Datsun pricelist with the Dutch Datsun catalogue I bought some time ago:
The Datsun pricelist is from February 1973 (pre 1973 oil crisis) and the prices are at least a bit surprising:
If you would buy a Datsun 240K GT (Nissan Skyline HGLC110) you would pay 16995 Guilders for it in 1973. When I calculated the 1973 Dutch Guilder to todays price it became 26000 euros (31700 US dollar) which is not a lot more than what I paid for a brand new Honda Civic last year. In other words: a bargain for a sporty Gran Turismo! How prices have changed since 1973! The same applies if I calculate price of the Datsun 240Z (21500 Guilders) to euros it would be 33200 euros (40500 US dollar) and you can’t even buy half a Nissan 370Z for that money in the Netherlands. Obviously in the US you can buy a 370Z for only $30000 (24500 euro) so a $40000 Nissan 370Z should be a well spec-ed out sport tech model.
The reason why you can’t buy a 370Z for the same money in the Netherlands? Nowadays 4500 euros of the price I paid for the Civic goes straight into the pockets of the government in the form of BPM (Dutch environmental / luxury tax) and BTW (Dutch VAT) so if I apply the same to the 240K GT should have cost at least 30000 euro or more and the 240Z 45000 euro. Or even worse as the Dutch government taxes on the environmental footprint of the car, so more realistically the hefty Dutch price of a 370Z nowadays (76900 euro) is clearly almost 70% tax (bpm and VAT)!
If only we could go back to those early 70s without complicated tax schemes, but I can only dream of bargain prices like this…
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