I believe I'm right in saying that you can only drive a UK registered car in another EU state for up to 6mths before you must register it in that country. Factor in the higher cost of insuring your car in another country longterm, the hassle and cost of having to repatriate it every year for a UK Mot and the extra risk of an accident which comes from driving on the wrong side of the car and I'd suggest selling your car before you go and buying one locally instead. There's plenty of cheap LHD metal around in Italy.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Don't bother with a nice car in Italy. It'll get pranged and scratched as soon as you get it out on the road.

I live in Austria, and we brought our UK registered car with us, so I have first hand experience. Here, you have to register your car within one month if you are registered as having your main home here - and you have to go that within days of arrival.

There are people from the UK here who run UK registered cars for extended periods, but it's illegal. If the tax police (yes, they do have such things here) catch up with you, you'll have to pay all the ongoing excise duty due since you arrived, plus the import duty, plus a penalty of several times the import duty. The import duty here is based on the value of the car and the emissions.

Obviously it may not be the same in Italy, but it was no problem re-registering the car and insuring it locally once it had the appropriate paperwork.

Think the situation in Spain is similar - if you're deemed to be tax resident there - i.e., live there more than 185 days per year, you must re-register the car within 30 days of achieving the change of tax status - also if you have a business there you must re-register:

murciatoday.com/changing-a-car-to-spanish-registra...l