Hi,
Thanks for your comment about the car. I am very happy with it as you can tell.
I think it's fair to say that buying a car in Australia is generally much more expensive then in the UK (I came over here from the UK about 15yrs ago). Previously, If you bought an Aussie made brand (Holden/Ford/Mitsu/Toyota) you actually got a lot more metal for your money than you would in the UK (think Monaro/Falcon/Commodore/Statesman), but anything imported had an import/luxury tax slapped on so they were a lot more pricey.
Now all the big car companies have pulled out of Australia, the government has reduced import taxes etc, but the price of new/second hand cars is still much higher. I hate watching UK shows like 'wheeler dealers', because they go out and buy an interesting car, make it good as new and sell it on for peanuts. They would cost 10x that here even before they were fixed up!
Luckily for me, Australia has a trade agreement with Japan, which meant I didn't have to pay any import duty when the Crown was imported. All I had to pay was the GST (VAT) on the purchase cost of the car which I think is set at 10%. As the car came from Japan it was v cheap!
Not sure about the details of this trade agreement, but it saved me a bundle!