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Personally, I think where does matter and is counted as another positive indicator that the site is legit if the TLD and location of hosting match.  I only have limited examples to draw from but I recall there being a 2 position increase after moving from Justhost to a Canadian hosting solution for a .ca.

I would take the "aggregation" route. Instead of having lots of pages for each make and model of vehicle, I would make single pages that list all of the vehicles of a single make and model.  These pages would be more substantive, permanent, impressive, useful, competitive, than a lot of skimply single pages that appear and disappear from your website. Competitors are probably not doing this because it is difficult instead of easy.   Put checkboxes down the side of the page that visitors can "check to compare".