The research

Industry research experts Jato Dynamics have compared today's UK prices with those in other European countries.

To highlight the differences, they compared pre-tax prices of 10 top-selling models in the UK with those of the same cars in 18 other EU countries. All prices were pre-tax, since the level of taxation varies from country to country.

Besides, if you import a car from an EU country into the UK, you only pay the UK's 17.5% VAT on it, so each country's tax level is irrelevant.

We also ensured the models we put under the spotlight were as identical in specification as possible. If equipment found on UK models was missing on cars from the continent, the price of fitting it to those cars was added on.

On the other hand, if continental cars had more kit than their UK counterparts, the value of that kit was deducted from the continental prices.