Back in the days when the motor industry referred to Britain as "Treasure Island", due to the vast price premiums they could get away with in Blighty, it was worth importing.

Favourite sources were NL and DK as both have swingeing tariffs on new cars and thus the base price was kept as low as possible by the manufacturers. Quite a few Dutch dealerships made a point of catering to UK trade, to the extent that they'd arrange all the paperwork and UK registration for you. Fly over, collect car, drive back.

Importing into NL: I think the cutoff for paying tax on import is around 7 years, I can ask fro the exact age if it's important to you. The tax reduces over time to reflect the vehicles depreciation, but it is always based on the price when new in NL, not where it came from. There's a fair trade in secondhand vehicles imported from DE and quite a few small traders specialise in doing this. While imports are a fair bit cheaper than "native" vehicles this percentage drop in price will also be seen on later resale, so there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Oddly, if you sell an older car here these days, it will quite likely be purchased by a small trader from Eastern Europe. My old Opel Zafira (new in DE, bought as an import in NL by me) has gone off to end its days in Georgia.....

Anbody who has been to Holland recently will see its probabley the richest country in Europe with an infrastructure second to none so if some things are a little bit more expensive what does that matter if the overall benifits leave you on the plus side.

I worked for many years for a Dutch company and they are proof you do not get things for nothing they are best workers i have ever come across and some of the nicest people..