> I told him that I don't think that the exchange rates
> and car values
> are in our favor. Besides, there must be custom and other
> regulations that
> get in the way or everyone would be doing it.
>
> Can someone on the list help me with a little more background,
> perhaps some specifics ? Or is he correct in his assumptions ?
Well, you'll have to do the math on sales prices yourself. Add in the
cost of shipping the car across the pond as well.
As for regulations, you have three agencies you have to deal with:
* EPA
* NHTSA
* Customs
The EPA is frequently considered to be a problem, but not in this case.
If importing a car over 21 years old, there is an exemption for emission
requirements. So the EPA is just a matter of filling out the
appropriate paperwork:
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/imports/factmnb.htm
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/imports/factmtop.htm
NHTSA is a bit more complicated. From my reading, it appears that any
vehicle more than 25 years old is exempt for any of their requirements.
Customs I haven't a clue about. The EPA pages have a link to Customs,
but since they're now part of Homeland Security, the information has
been moved around, so the link is broken.
You may want to give a call to a registered Independent Commercial
Importer (link on EPA page above). Make it clear that you're interested
in importing a car over 25 years old, which means they'll basically be
handling the paperwork and dealing with Customs, rather than having to
actually modify or test the car. They should be able to tell you how
much they'll charge. If you were to do this on a regular basis, it
would obviously be less expensive to do all of this yourself, but it
would take some time to learn all the ins and outs of the process.
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