Buy It There, Drive It Here - Import Tuner Magazine

As I began to piece together this story, I thought back years ago, a time long before I started churning out insightful feature articles for mere pennies. As an avid reader of import magazines, I was plain spoiled by Japan coverage: Full photographic spreads displayed the paradise that is known as a Japanese used car lot. A low-mileage Integra Type R for $10,000, an R34 Skyline GT-R for $22,000-these were cars I could afford. Why lay down the $35,000 it takes to buy a beaten-up Supra when I could have a genuine turbocharged Silvia for so much less? Not to mention the Silvia is an actual JDM shell where I could sit on the right-hand side and step out right on to the curb; that's worth a brownie. Shipping the car over was the only issue to deal with. But when owning a sweet ride is at stake, it's not even that bad.

But would it be legal to drive? That's the golden question.

Importing and driving a car that only you can identify is a tricky situation 2NR readers should be fully versed in. There are far too many unscrupulous characters out there waiting for fools who don't know how to hold on to their money. A fully street-legal Nissan Gloria delivered to your door ready to drive in 10 weeks, for $13,000? Sounds too good to be true, because it is. If there's anything you have to know up front before import Why yes officer, I do want to get busted.

The most common importing method is through the back door. Although not quite as bad as visiting the unmarked van sitting around the corner, most methods don't follow the letter of the law. It's only a matter of time before something goes horribly wrong. "I have a friend who..." begins the often repeated tale of success. Famous last words. While your "friend" just might be able to ship, unload and register the vehicle in your local state, it won't follow federal regulations and won't be 50-state legal. You might be able to import a car by registering it as a kit car, calling a Skyline a Nissan 240SX, or bringing a vehicle over as parts. But you won't be able to drive it everywhere. What happens when you get it smog checked and the referee discovers none of the equipment matches? How would you feel getting the $700 insurance payout for a crashed 1988 240SX, when you ponied up big bucks for a R34 Skyline? What happens if you want to sell the car to somebody else? What about the cops? How would you feel if you were constantly getting pulled over and getting completely hassled because you don't have a compliance sticker? Yes, it does suck, but don't despair. The government makes it hard, but not impossible.

There are special circumstances under which a car may be imported. Foreign citizens may import a foreign-registered car for one year, and in the old days military personnel could bring back foreign-market vehicles. You can even import show or display vehicles, provided you can prove it has such "historical significance" that you would be doing a service by importing and displaying it. A very short list of cars have already had their "significance" judged, and said vehicles can be imported without any proof of history. However, if you look at the very short list you'll see that only rich-boy cars such as the Porsche 959 and McLaren F1 are included, and you can only drive 2,500 street miles per year.

Knowing our readers' needs, we'll only focus on two situations: racecars and fully street-legal cars.

Let's go drifting: importing a racecar For help on race monsters, we turned to Jeffrey Shu, owner of Chaste Auto in Pomona, Calif., a shop that has turned quite a few wrenches on rally and race machines. First, any car that reaches U.S. soil, be it race or street, has to clear customs. It doesn't matter what your intentions are, customs agents need to know what it is and what you're doing with it. A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration HS-7 form and an Environmental Protection Agency 3520-1 form must be properly filled out before it can clear customs and be released from the port.