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eBay tat volume 3.

Ross_K

By Ross_K
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eddyramrod Rank: Matra Rancho towing a Tagora

eddyramrod

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I knew a bloke in Southport who was restoring a Scim.  Having pulled out the V6 he replaced it with... a Sierra 1.8.

garethj Rank: Isuzu Florian

garethj

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Cheap turbo diesel Scimitar - be quick.  If this wasn't up in Scotlandcestershire I'd be bidding.

 

*swoon*

 

 

 The power unit is a Perkins 2 litre out of a Sherpa van( recon just before the conversion) to which a turbo, turbo injector pump and turbo injectors were added)

 

*fap, fap, fap*

mouseflakes Rank: Renault 16

mouseflakes

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^ Doesn't need a conversion, I don't think you could make it any camper than that.

ShiteRider Rank: Citroen Ami

ShiteRider

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Whats the story with that jap car site? The cars seem dangerously cheap.

garethj Rank: Isuzu Florian

garethj

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I looked into importing from Japan last year when I fell completely in love with a Honda Z turbo like this one

01w.jpg

 

I've had a Suzuki Cappuccino and two Suzuki Whizzkids, despite me being over 6 feet tall I love a Kei car.  This Honda has the little engine mid-mounted, under the rear seat and 4WD.  LAMBO DIABLOZ EAT MY SUSHI  Anyway, I asked around and the breakdown of costs is like this for a typical car under £1000:

 

£880 Car
£680 Buyers fee / transport / de-registration / Japanese agent fee / paperwork forwarding / storage / ship loading
£400 Shipping (might be less as a Kei car is tiny and it's done on cubic metres)
£196 Customs duty on the above at 10%
£431 VAT on the above at 20%
£100 Customs agent fee
£500 UK import agent fee
£200 MOT / fog light / any minor bits
£55 DVLA registration fee (plus 6/12m car tax - will be whatever the rate is for cars under 1.4 engine)

 

That's £3400 all in.  You might be lucky on the MoT and stuff, but that's a good start to see where the money goes.  Would I have a car like that for £1500?  Damn right.  For £3k?  It's a bit expensive for something that I've never even seen for real, let alone sat in and driven.

 

Apparently you cannot directly bid on the cars yourself and unless you're fluent in Japanese you'll never get the paperwork sorted out.  I'm told that a good UK agent is worth every penny of his £500, he should know the auctions inside out and will scourer them daily for cars, send you the translated reports and let you decide what to bid. In most cases you'll also get pictures of the car hours before it goes through. He will have a team out there who physically check the cars so you're not bidding blind. If you want they'll even call and walk you through the car. Everything is in your hands and you call the shots.

In regards to the Japanese agent fee, that is about £680 at present exchange rate. You pay that as a lump sum when you win a car - not before. This is called the FOB price (car + fee). The fee doesn't change until you're bidding over 1M YEN. FOB is the price of a car sitting at the docks awaiting export.

Shipping is roll on/roll off, a container will cost you about £1000.  Wonder how many you could get into a container....

Ratdat Rank: Renault 16

Ratdat

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Seems excessive. Ok I know this was nearly ten years ago but I bought an R33 Skyline back in 2004 from Tau in Japan. It cost me £1300 all in, shipping and taxes paid!

garethj Rank: Isuzu Florian

garethj

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Sounds more reasonable, is that because the exchange rate was very different back then, or did you manage to dodge some of the fees?

 

If it's the first one, manipulating the international currency exchange is a bit of a faff.  If it's the second one, that could be handy to know

Ratdat Rank: Renault 16

Ratdat

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The exchange rate was definately better back then and I think vat was lower too then but there was no sidestepping of fees. I paid a company called Penguin shipping to do the customs clearance but they didn't chage all that much (otherwise i could have done it myself but it seemed cheap enough to not bother). The auction and sales were Tau's own so they made all the arrangements that end so I guess the fees there were less too. The car itself was about £280 of the final cost and shipping was about £450 IIRC. Like I said though, it was nigh on ten years ago. I imported a Terrano R3M from them too and that wasn't much more.

HereHareHere Rank: Austin Maxi

HereHareHere

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That's £3400 all in.  

 

 

Oh well.

 

*sad trombone noise*

  • ed5000 and garethj
  • Like 2
Junkman Rank: Matra Rancho towing a Tagora

Junkman

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The exchange rate was definately better back then and I think vat was lower too then but there was no sidestepping of fees. I paid a company called Penguin shipping to do the customs clearance but they didn't chage all that much (otherwise i could have done it myself but it seemed cheap enough to not bother). The auction and sales were Tau's own so they made all the arrangements that end so I guess the fees there were less too. The car itself was about £280 of the final cost and shipping was about £450 IIRC. Like I said though, it was nigh on ten years ago. I imported a Terrano R3M from them too and that wasn't much more.

 

That's most likely because you didn't import a 'car' from Tau, but 'salvage'. Different items attract severely different tariffs, despite being outwardly the same.

Also, any car imported into the EU that's 30 years old or older is duty free and only a reduced VAT rate is applied, so make sure the Debonair you import is a 1984 or earlier.

garethj Rank: Isuzu Florian

garethj

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True, I got a 1961 VW from Sweden, it wasn't rusty because they don't salt the roads. The seller kindly pushed it onto a ferry for me, all I had to do was push it off at the other end.

  • Junkman, minolman and fordperv
  • Like 3
tooSavvy Rank: Talbot Tagora

tooSavvy

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JAPAN...hmmm.

 

My niece lives there & has achieved high fluency..... wonder if she has started dreaming in Japanese >> perish the thought!!  :o

 

TS

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