Short of asking an owner or a dealer direct , where might I be able to discover ( for free) the actual retail price of a car when it was first registered?

While by no means complete, this very website will show the RRP for many cars. Find the car in question on the reviews section and scroll down to or click on "models and specs".

You could also try searching for a brochure/price list pdf for the relevant car?

knowing what it cost BEFORE it left the showroom is for me a key piece of consumer data.

Why?

Edited by badbusdriver on 23/02/2025 at 11:25

I just think it’s an extra bit of useful data when determining whether any product is good value. For example-If I was looking at a 6 year old car in good condition being sold today for £10k which originally was marked at £24k when new in 2018, there’s a nice £lot to think about.

What you are talking about is depreciation, that is something relatively easy to find out and has been for many years. It is essentially how a dealer or buyer decides how much to offer you for your car as a trade in or if it is simply being bought.

But if you are trying to pin down how much a specific model of car has lost in a given amount of time, I'm not sure that would actually be possible with any degree of accuracy. There are just far too many variables, including the simple fact of what constitutes as being "in good condition", which is almost certainly going too vary from one persons opinion to the next.

Complete waste of time and effort (IMO)!