Touring - Travelling to Europe, buy bike there?

My wife and I will be moving to Germany from the USA for an extended temporary work assignment. My employer is shipping our personal posessions, and there is room in the shipment for two bikes.

We will be doing some extended touring, and are looking at purchasing bikes from the usual suspects found on this forum (trek 520, Cannondale T2000, Fuji World, Giant tourer, etc, etc).

Does anyone have any wisdom to share regarding whether the bikes should be purchased in the USA (shipping won't cost us anything) or purchased in Europe?

My inclination is to purchase in the USA, although I imagine there are some intriguing tourers that can only be found in Europe (like Thorn, Dawes, etc...those are British bikes and not terribly convenient to Germany?)

Any thoughts are welcome.

for the usual suspects you'll probably be better off purchasing here. the value
added tax (mehrwertsteuer) in germany will raise the price by 20% or so. you may
get vat refunded depending on your status (military/dod contract), or may be able
to special purchase through the px system w/o MwSt.

i doubt you'll find any stock bikes better than the dedicated tourers you've listed.
just different. if you do wind up shopping in deutschneyland, check the latest
models by VSF-fahrradmanufaktur bremen. i bought my commuter model "zwitter"
in a small berlin shop run by greens. excellent heavy-duty hauler - have well over
50k miles logged.

if money is no object, there are plenty of custom builders to choose from.

Buy it here. The Euro is stronger than the dollar, so you'll feel the pinch a lot more there, especially if you're buying an American bike. If you're buying a European bike, it may be best to buy it there, since you wouldn't have to pay import fees and taxes like we do here.

Koffee

Buy in America, it'll be a lot cheaper. There are some great British tourers (Dawes, Orbit etc) but they can be pretty hard to get hold of here in blighty, let alone in Germany and aren't that cheap. The vast majority of non-mountain bikes I've seen for sale in Germany are hefty 'comfort' style bikes with massive saddles

Buy custom here (I'm thinking Bruce Gordon) and bring them with you-probably cost a little more than high end german tourers (without Rohloff hubs)-considering the exchange rate.

I have no experience in the matter, but my thoughts are like this.

If you're only looking for new, buy it here for reasons already cited.

However, if you're willing to go used (or custom) and like a little adventure. You're sure to wind up with a story for the grandkids if you buy there.