Importing a kit car...

[rorys]

About to load up a container in the UK with all our personal belongings and was thinking about throwing in a westfield in kit form to come along for the ride.

Would leave the engine and gearbox behind but take everything else. Has anyone ever done this? How easy is it to import car parts, I'm sure I read somewhere that customs get nervous when they see a complete car in pieces arriving?

Cheers

[deviant]

I believe you can bring a kit in and should be able to build it with very few changes for the ADR requirements.

I think (cant be sure) that as the parts are new you will be charged import tax.

To be honest its probably not much of a saving to import a kit...look on the Oz Clubbies forum as those guys have about exhausted every option for getting a kit car on the road for sensible money.

[custardtart]

I'm interested in how this turns out as I've got a complete westfield minus engine and gearbox sat in a garage in the Uk that I'd like to bring over at some point.

[deviant]

If you look on the Aus customs website it tells you about importing a car and at what point it stops being a car and becomes a collection of parts. Off the top of my head if the engine, complete driveline and the wheels come on a seperate shipment then it can all be considered as parts.

Note that seperate shipment does not mean seperate containers and tracking numbers on the same boat. I actually means completely seperate boats.

A while back I looked in to the idea of having a mate of mine in the UK buy me a used high spec kit and ship it knocked down in to parts. The initial purchase price would be substantially below a high spec kit here but by the time it was shipped, tax paid and then modified for ADR requirements and on the road the saving was not that great.