Funny old life

[ajg31]

One week ago i collected my lovely NOble, and been more than happy overall One week later i find out our factory (Ford Leamington) is being closed in 16 weeks... Hoping i dont have to sell her, thinking of Australia seriously now. Any owners over there now?

[worty]

Sorry to hear that mate. Hope it works out for you.
Australia. just think of all those open roads
worty

[Stv]

Yep. And took the 3R with me. It gets some funny looks I can tell ya

[AMG Merc]

Think positive - I became "available for work" after placing my deposit for my M12 and subsequently took delivery still "available for work" which seemed crazy, and somewhat scary) at the time but the beastie is still in my garage three years later!

[mgbond]

ajg31 said:

One week ago i collected my lovely NOble, and been more than happy overall One week later i find out our factory (Ford Leamington) is being closed in 16 weeks... Hoping i dont have to sell her, thinking of Australia seriously now. Any owners over there now?

I'm looking at taking mine over there in the next few years, If you put a post on the pistonheads australia you will find some people that have done it. I think there is an issue from the emissons side but not sure.

Bondy

[ajg31]

Stv, what did you need to do mate to get it legal for Oz?

[Stv]

Adam, keep the car as original as possible, especially stuff relating to emmisions,noise and lighting.

Ship it under a Personal Import Approval Cert
Get it through Quarrantine
Get it through Customs
Get it through the State Registration Process - (Design rules / Road worthiness / ID check)
Get and fit a Personally Imported Vehicle plate

You get an Exemption Cert at the end of it all to say that because the car is a personal import it is exempt from some Australian Design Rules. But there is a clause in the cert that says that "this certificate relates only to the vehicle described hereon and is not to be taken as a precedent". Which means if you and I have the exact same car you wont necesarily get the same result as I did. Each vehicle is looked at individually.

Each of these steps incurs a cost and plenty of detailed paperwork. I found the whole process pretty straight forward compared to say dealing with the DVLA. If you need any details on the above drop me an email. I got alot of help from guys on here who had already done it so posting here is definately the right step.

[ajg31]

Thanks mate. Maybe pie in the sky for me to ship her as i am not a rich guy by a long stretch, just hate the thought of giving up the best thing i have ever owned!

[mgbond]

ajg31 said:

Thanks mate. Maybe pie in the sky for me to ship her as i am not a rich guy by a long stretch, just hate the thought of giving up the best thing i have ever owned!

Same here, the other option is to sell the car and get an Exige the Lotus is worth alot more out there. When my mate took his out he had it out there for a year then sold it as he came back. It was worth over here about 16k if he was luck and he sold it out there for 24k covering the 4k it cost him to get it out and made 4k and that was just on a 2000 Mk1 elise.

Bondy