What would it take to import a Japanease car to the US? I always thought that Japan's emission laws were a lot more strict that the US? It seems that we don't have any problems importing engines! Would there be any fees, or conversions that would need to be made to the vehicle being imported? If anyone has imported a car before please give me so me direction, it will be greatly appreciated.

 

i can't think of the name of the top of my head, but there is a company in california that imports skylines to the us for street use. maybe contacting them would give you an idea of what is involved.

personally, i think it would be way more money than it's worth.

 

you're thinking of motorex..

at motorex.net

its a HUGE pain to import a car so I'd say their skylines are fairly well priced..

they only do skylines afiak

David
'00 Protege DX
http://323.itgo.com

 

Thats the place!

i know they only do skylines, but i though they might be able to help this guy understand what is involved in importing a car.

and to think, i can have a skyline r34 for ONLY $85,000!

 

Motorex's cars are way too much compared to the auctions held monthly in Japan. There was an R33 skyline GTR that sold for 430,000 YEN ==> 3,515 U.S dollars!!! Given the current exchange rate.

 

I always thought it was Japan that had the strict *** laws, why else would they rip bad *** motors out of their cars at 50K miles??? On top of that they get heavy fines for not passing emissions. Only Certain states here in the U.S have emission laws, I can't remember the last time I, or those who own doms running open headers had to get our cars inspected!

 

Here are the (draconian) rules for importing cars into the US as I remember them. If the car is 25 years or older then you don't have to do anything to them as far as emissions and crash tests. Anything else, it must be brought in by a liscensced importer. These guys must not only get the thing up to emissions standards for their years, but also they must crash-test three cars and get them to pass government standards. Thats one reason why if I bought a Skyline in Osaka, I'd pay, like $55K. While if I went to Torrence, CA, I'd pay a cool $100K.

 

Yeah, I heard somewhere else that you must get another car for them to crash test hehe, in order to import the other

 

there are some ways in which a car can be brought into the US (modern car, not a 25 year old one) without the crash test... I need to do a little more research on it and will see what I come up with. I know that this is the case as it was a recent loophole that was opened up by some lobby that was heavily founded by Bill Gates (imagine that!... for years he had a 959 that he could not get on the road before this sitting in a warehouse).

there was some mention of the loopholes in either "Car and Driver" or "Road & Track" a while back.

Update:
I found this page which has the actual NHTSA text and a brief dummary:
http://www.maseratinet.com/MCI/ruling.php3
from that page:
So... if you do not want to put any miles on it you can try to import it....

 

I forgot about the "Show car" loophole. That's where you can legally register it and all, but you can only drive the car for, like, 3,500(?) miles a year. But there is hope for us JDM and EDM freaks!

 

i don't know if anyone has tried it, but I wonder if I bought, say a 323 GTR over in Japan and dismantled it, then brought it to the US in bits and pieces, reassembled it in my garage an registered it as a kit-car...

HMMMMMM...

 

That might work, but it is quite involved!