We are planning a minimum of 1 year living in Le Marche, hopefully to permanently reside in Italy. One of the most baffling hurdles to jump at the moment is car ownership in Italy.
1) will an elective residency visa enable purchase of a vehicle and, seeing as this type of visa would take some time to acquire, do you have to have it granted before you can purchase a vehicle or will proof of application suffice?
2) does anyone have any experience of car insurance through Clements? I have read that these might be a cheaper option than the two main insurer companies in Italy

As a resident you can buy a car. Clements last dealings we had with them as a customer (some time back now), they pulled out of Italy and left us.... We, as residents, found the local ACI most helpful and they found us much cheaper Italian insurance.

Sorry for ignorance, what's the ACI?

Like the RAC. They have an office in most large towns.
https://www.aci.it

Yeah, did a quick search after I asked and found that out. Thanks for reply.

Obviously you cannot live in Italy above the 90 day rule without having obtained a Visas first of all applying from the UK,so the visa problem for car buying is irrelevant.After you have the Visa you have to go to the Questura to get your Permesso di Soggiorno and then having got that you need to pop along to the Commune to get your Carta d'Identita. As far as I recall it is this last document that you need to show to buy a car
Be wary of dealing with UK companies that claim to be able to insure you in Italy.Personally I would join ACI they offer a real holistic service to the motorist including licence exchange etc

Good reply, thanks. To get to the point of permesso di soggiorno doesn't it? Like maybe a year, given that the elective visa can also take months on end. I guess, seeing as we'll need a car from day one, we'll be spending an awful lot on car hire.

Peugeot and Renault do long leases. Might be worth investigating.