Buying a Car in Italy

When we first arrived in Italy, one of the things I dreaded was buying a car. It’s so awful in the United States, with all the posturing, “deals”, and bluffing, and we couldn’t imagine doing this in a foreign language and culture. I’d seen the movies, and I imagined that many of the guys who wore bad suits, shiny shoes, and fedoras moonlighted as car salesmen when they weren’t doing other dastardly deeds. On the plus side, we were intrigued to buy something we couldn’t get in the US—like a Citroen, Peugeot, or Renault—which all seemed truly exotic, despite the fact that to the locals these brands are about as exciting as paint.

Our first purchase was a used Citroen Picasso, which earned a nickname, “The Tractor”. This nickname derived from the car’s silent, purring, powerful, tiny diesel engine, its lush interior of plastic and velour, and its snappy handling and luxury ride, tuned to feel every pothole. Despite all of this, it was fierce and took us on many an adventure. (I had AI generate the image of a Citroen Picasso above, which is fairly representative of the kinds of things we put “The Tractor” through.)

When we decided to buy a Picasso there was one being sold by its owner, about two hours away, for a good price. There was a local dealer who had a similar car, but for slightly more. That car sat in front of his shop, and we thought we could use the more distant car as leverage to do the deal locally.

We walked in to the local car dealer with a touch of a saunter, secure in the card we were holding. “We like the car in front, but we are also looking at this one in Livorno at a lower price.” The dealer looked carefully at our printout with the specs, and looked up with a sweet smile and said “This is a really good price. You should go to Livorno and get it!” Not what we were expecting.

When Donella was riding horses she was friends with a girl at the barn whose dad is a car dealer. So naturally, we went to him when we decided we needed to buy a second car, this time a new Renault. We learned a lot from this experience—like that the prices listed are pretty much what they are willing to accept. There’s a little wiggle room, but surprisingly less than what we were used to in the States. Any kind of walking away or delaying tactics simply didn’t work. (I had a brief flirtation with a Mini and went to the dealer three times, doing a test drive twice. They had all my contact info, which I was reluctant to give, as I was sure that I was going to be hounded. Quite the contrary—they never followed up, despite my obvious interest.)

We were gently schooled in the level of quasi-transparency and respect when buying a new car. This Renault remains a delight, as does our ongoing relationship with this dealer, who always shows me videos of his daughter riding.

He recently bought a restaurant as a side gig, and one day he came up to me while I was waiting to pay for a servicing at the dealership. He pulled out his phone, and I was expecting to see horses, but instead there was a close up of a bald man in a tuxedo with a disco-ball inspired bow tie, holding a truffle. “I’ve invited ‘The Lord of the Truffle’ to the restaurant to do an all-truffle dinner, and you must come!” How could I say no to our friend, and the promise of meeting The Lord of the Truffle? I agreed, against every instinct I have, except for curiosity and politeness. But that dinner deserves its own story, which will come.

The time has rolled around for us to be in the market for a car and we were pretty wide open about what were interested in. We were slightly loyal to the French brands, but our dealer friend only had Renaults, and there wasn’t one in their current range that we liked. Much to our surprise, he told us to hop into one of the cars from the dealership and he’d show us some other options from competing brands. If I’ve ever been driven around by a dealer before it was always in one of their shiny, top-of-the-line cars. The ones who they wanted you to fall in love with.

He backed out an older Renault Kangoo for us to hop into. For those unfamiliar with the Kangoo, it’s every bit as sleek and sophisticated as its name. Its daddy was a U-Haul wardrobe moving box, and mommy was a skateboard.

We got in and drove thirty minutes to some other dealerships, getting the latest in local gossip. To catch you up, the new factory with enormous vents, no signage, and bars over the windows is, as I’d guessed, a gold factory. We learned about that there are different truffles in different seasons—the summer ones you want to ignore. The shocking news was that someone stole a €400 bottle of wine from his restaurant.

We saw a Peugeot that was interesting, and before we knew what was happening we found ourselves in a glass booth with not one, but two, car dealers. John and I looked at each other in despair. The Peugeot dealer was an older man who had taken off his jacket in a protracted manner, slowly and carefully hanging it, before sitting down at his desk, straightening everything on top before we could begin. Our friend was fielding non stop calls from other clients, and every time he took a call our conversation would stop. Mr. Peugeot sighed about the frantic nature of modern life and how everyone expects an instant response. Finally, there was a moment of silence between calls, and the two men started discussing how much of a discount they could come up with between them. They printed out the offer, and we exchanged contact information so that I could return to test drive an electric model in the next couple of days. The events below took us in a different direction, and I never received a follow up call from Signore Peugeot.

Then, I got a text from our friend that Nissan was having a special with €12,000 off their electric cars, but only for the next few days. We’d been slightly interested in seeing a Nissan, but it was located pretty far away. We were once again back on the road with our friend, this time to go to a Nissan dealer over an hour away. We test drove one, really liked it, and decided to take advantage of this rebate. The problem was that we had to take one of the cars in stock and we didn’t like any that this dealer had. I drove the hour back while our friend started calling dealers all over Italy to find what we wanted.

Now I am sure that he gets a cut, but we were so surprised at this guy’s willingness to physically go the extra mile to make sure that we got the right car for us, even though it was outside his dealership. We have yet to receive this car…so stay tuned. But the big lesson is, once again, we never know what to expect and have to learn to trust.

A couple of practical notes on purchasing a car, for anyone who may need to know. Oddly enough, foreigners are allowed to buy property, but you can’t buy a car unless you are a legal resident (you don’t have to be a citizen). A common way around this is to ask a friend who is a resident to buy a car for you, and hold title. I’ve discovered, after hearing the experiences of a few people, that this can backfire on the resident friend if anything seriously goes wrong, like a bad accident, while the foreign driver is behind the wheel. Because this arrangement is in a very grey area legally, the insurance company may not pay damages and can even go after the resident friend. There may be other legal repercussions.

There’s a couple ways around this. There are some agencies that will buy the car on your behalf and “rent” it back to you. Because they are businesses, and the car is insured through them, the liability is covered. There are also short-term leasing deals available in France from two weeks to six months, available to people from outside the EU. We did this our first six months and it worked like a dream—brand new car, comprehensive insurance, and unlimited mileage. Easy to hand back in at the end.