import car to america ( florida ) from uk

[justingtr]

hi just wanted to know if anybody has imported a car from the uk to america ( florida ) as i want to ship my ultima gtr over there i want to know about import costs , duty , and registration of car thanks

[saleen836]

The US has very strict rules on importing a vehicle that is not already available there, each state has different slants to the rules (emissions etc) it could work out costing you more than the value of the car so lots of homework is needed.

Have a read of this...
http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/import/
this should help you out a bit

Edited by saleen836 on Saturday 6th October 10:47

[LostCroc]

I love Ultimas! Nice choice

However, I am in a world of pain trying to navigate my way through this mess right now. I have an old (1977 so 25yrs+) V8 Touring race car from Australia that could concievably be used on the road since it is only lightly modified.

Here is what I have learned:
- Duty is 2.5% for a car.
- If your car is less than 25 years old based on date of manufacture then it needs to comply with the DOT regs for things like bumpers, emissions, airbags, etc. It needs to have a manufacturer US DOT compliance plate mounted on the car. If it does not then you need to pay for a registered importer to make these modifications which has to be expensive for any car much less an Ultima. It would not surprise me if they want to crash test it! I have personally talked with 8 Registered Importers so far and they are all snake oil salesmen - lots of hot air and promises but no details and no real desire to want to assist me even on a paying basis. The list of Registered Importers is laid out on the NHTSA website.
- If it is over 25 years old then the story is cloudy. I have NHTSA telling me that I still need to comply with the regs in place for that year. I have DOT saying that I do not have to - so I have no idea. Not really relevant to you but I mention it for completeness.
- You could import on a temporary basis for display purposes but then it must leave the country before the time is up otherwise it is on borrowed time for being crushed by the authorities. So that is no good for you.
- You could import it as a race car. To be a permanent import you need a specific certification from the manufacturer. If no certification then it is temporary import only for up to 3 years(or with special approval 5 years). This is a possibility for you but you need to be aware you are legally committing to it never being registered for road use - if they discover you have then you are in a world of pain. The manufacturer certification is not as easy as it may sound...as I have discovered.
- You could import it as a special/rare/one off car of historic or special significance. However, your car may not meet the criteria - at least mine does not and it is 1 of 18 left in the world and has heritage value in Australia (but not the US).

I have heard of people taking their kit cars (Caterhams and Westfields in this instance) pulling the engine, transmission, wheels and diffs out and shipping the body separately from the drive train and calling the 2 separate shipments parts. While the couple of stories I know of seem to show a success this way, I would caution you that this is not legal and if caught you would have some difficulties.

I have also heard of people shipping cars into Canada as it is easier to get them in there and then just driving across the border with a trailer to pick them up and drive home - again I do not believe this is legal.

Start reading here:
http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/import/

The good news is that Florida is one of the easiest states to register a car. So if you get it in on a non-race car or non-display basis then they will register it.


If anyone else here has a recommendation for a decent Registered Importer then please post here as they are in short supply.

I hope others are able to chime in with some better ways on how to achieve an import into the US than what I know above.

[Matt Harper]

Not possible with that car in it's assembled form - unless you temporarily import it - i.e. the car stays on its UK plates, is not titled or tagged in FL, but is insured - and is exported within 12 months of entry to the US. Beyond 12 months to stay in the country it must be either scrapped or pass FL DoT (which an Ultima wont).
If the car was disassembled and shipped as a kit, there is a school of thought that you can take advantage of a DoT loophole, but I'm not conversent with that.
I did it with a Euro spec C5 Corvette and it was a doddle - as it should be with a US built vehicle.

[geeman237]

Lostcroc, go to the TVR in the USA section of the TVR forum on this site. There are two recent threads near the top from guys that have just imported and are in the process of importing 25 yr old plus TVR's. This should tell you that you are fine to import a 25 yr old car with no mods needed at all. Go for it. I imported a 1968 car from the UK in 2004 and it was easy, no mods done.

State titling depends on each state and it seems your local DMV office may or may not have people clued up on this, mostly not. It can be done though.

Less than 25 years old, extremely difficult it seems, but I have not tried it. Show and Display entry seems very strict on criteria.

[LostCroc]

geeman237 said:

Lostcroc, go to the TVR in the USA section of the TVR forum on this site. There are two recent threads near the top from guys that have just imported and are in the process of importing 25 yr old plus TVR's. This should tell you that you are fine to import a 25 yr old car with no mods needed at all. Go for it. I imported a 1968 car from the UK in 2004 and it was easy, no mods done.

Thank you Geeman! I would never have seen that without the direction. The only hassle I now see is that I need a title to import and there is no such thing for non-road registered cars in Australia. Still a big step forward in understanding.

[JDRoest]

justingtr said:

hi just wanted to know if anybody has imported a car from the uk to america ( florida ) as i want to ship my ultima gtr over there i want to know about import costs , duty , and registration of car thanks

Don't think it's impossible at all. Drop me a line and I'll put you in touch with a chap called Ed who used to build Ultimas in the US and I believe he used to be the official importer. He'll know other people in the business I'm sure, so taking it apart, putting it back together wouldn't be a problem at all. He built an absolute beautiful GTR several years ago.

Getting it registered in Florida, can't see a problem there - the local tax office will wander outside, read the VIN, write the VIN down, and then work out how much you owe them. You'll need a valuation from a local dealer (maybe one of the Ultima specialists), but they value it low (of course) and then you just pay the Florida sales tax on it.

Florida is ridiculous for registering cars, I've seen spanking new t-buckets being registered as antique because the steering column is older than 25 years. They even spent an hour trying to register my old truck as antique to save me money! And the supervisor choose which model the truck was by scrolling through a list of options, looking at the wall, and counting to 5. Apparently that was her tried and tested way of figuring out what model exactly something was.

Have fun though!

[geeman237]

Lostcroc, glad I could be of some help to you. As far as your Australian title issue, I am not sure this really is one. As far as I remember, my UK title for my Triumph really mean nothing for the shipping and re-titling in the USA. It was only used to record on the UK vehicles the car was permanently exported from the UK. I may be wrong, so it will obviously pay to double check with a shippin company etc. As long as you have something fairly legitimate showing you as the legal owner of the vehicle etc you may be OK.


Good luck.