Trying to do it outside of CA is a definite GOOD idea. The DMV are
actually quite good at what they do here, and work with the federal
safely folk closely. Two tales to tell:
1. An old roommate bought a new BMW M/C in Germany and brought it over
here. Took 10 months to get it registered and legal, almost had it
confiscated and crushed (the 'solution' to those vehicles that fail the
inspection). Problems? Mostly lamp colors and various certifications,
high beam indicator color, gas tank crush testing, etc.. The biggest
issue was that there were a number of items that BMW had to certify and
they were not helpful , as they shouldn't be if they want to prevent a
large gray market of importation. Ended up costing him about what he
saved by bringing it over as a euro model instead of buying the US model
(with a markup and safety testing, emissions certifications, and such).
2. Some friends brought 4 2CVs over from their native Belgium a number
of years back as a way to help pay for an extended vacation in the US.
They sell there for a couple of hundred dollars, essentially considered
junk, and here are considered a cute and collectible exotic. They had
two shipped to NY, where they flew into, and the others shipped to SF,
CA. The NY ones were fine and they drove them around for a few months
then sold them. The ones delivered to CA never got off the docks due to
the safety inspections and CA emissions issues. Crushed (or now driven
by friends of the inspectors said the cynic).
Mark Miller
69 RHD Fairlady, imported from Japan by PO the easy way (driven off of a
USAF cargo plane at Travis AFB).
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2000 16:32:11 EDT
From: DemonTSi@aol.com
Subject: registering an imported car in the US
Hi folks, I'm trying to dig up some info on registering an importer car
in
the US. I have heard that it's possible to register a car "in" alabama
without actually being a residence, and then you can then transfer that
title
to whatever state you live in after a set amount of time. I've been
scouring
the roadster archives, but can't find any pertinent info. Any help with
this
would be great. I've got a friend with a '99 civic type R that we're
trying
to figure out how to make street legal.
Thanks in advance.
Van
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