Re: importing cars privately.

[George Graves <gmgraves@domain.elided>]

The laws have certainly changed since you brought your car back, and 
probably *are* even stricter now.

As for your French rental of a 156 with a 1.9 JTD (Diesel). This car is 
anemic and slow even if it isn't a rental. I've driven a 156 with the 
2.4 JTD, and believe me, better than a 1.9 JTD it might be, but its 
nothing to write home about performance-wise (got great gas milage 
though even when cruising at 110-115 MPH - it just took forever to get 
there).

George Graves
'86 GTV-6



On Thursday, Jan 16, 2003, at 13:04 US/Pacific, alfa-digest wrote:


> Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 09:05:46 -0500
> From: Steve An <san@domain.elided>
> Subject: Re: importing cars privately.
>
> Ciao tutti,
>
> My advance apology for raising the question since I am not very 
> informed or
> up to date on this "personal importation" subject, but I am not sure 
> it is
> quite as simple as George stated below? at least in 1987 when I 
> returned to
> the US from an assignment in Germany. I am sure George can point 
> anyone to
> a more reliable source for info (such as the DOT).
>
> I worked for 2 years as a government contractor at Patch Barracks in
> Stuttgart, at the time under the command of no less than General Colin
> Powell, he was just as impressive in those days, but I digress.... I 
> had
> all the privileges granted by the US government to its civil servants. 
> When
> I left in 1987 to move back stateside, the rules at the time were as 
> follow.
>
> 1. Cars that were older than 5 years got EPA exempt, only DOT was 
> required,
> you get a once per lifetime exemption and I am not sure if you had any
> resell restriction. A colleague brought back a 78 928 and sold it 
> later.
>
> 2. Cars that were less than 5 years, both EPA and DOT compliance were
> required, I brought my 1986 911 back and it cost around $5K for the
> compliance. Everything were handled by the military (AAFES). I had no
> resell restriction and sold the car to my house mate after a while. I 
> had
> to rush my car in because the law changed soon after I did, one of 
> which
> was the requirement of bond triple the value of the car instead of 
> single
> bonding. In both cases, you must own the car for 7500 miles, though no 
> one
> asked since it was handled by the military people.
>
> 3. As a diplomatic or foreign national person, one could bring any car
> without doing a thing into this country and register and drive it for 
> only
> one year. You can not resell it.
>
> Around this time, Mercedes Benz (MBNA) was losing a lot of business to 
> the
> gray market importation, which is a slightly different category than 
> the
> above mentioned personal importation, so they sued and got the laws 
> changed
> severely, enough to kill the gray market. Of course, the ensuing 
> weakness
> of the dollar probably had  a lot more to do with that.
>
> Remember, Bill Gates had all sorts of troubles bringing in a 959, it 
> was in
> fact impounded for a while as reported by Autoweek.
>
> Having said this, I did find an unconverted euro spec BMW M635Csi (the
> precursor to the M6) for sale at a local dealer around 1988, with
> absolutely no EPA or DOT and US Maine title. The story was a diplomat 
> got
> the car into the US, somehow got it registered and titled in Maine,
> probably during the moose hunting season when no one was looking, and 
> got
> around the DOT's restrictions, once you get the US title, the coast is
> clear. I had heard that similar thing can be done in Alabama, Texas 
> etc...
> but i reckon things have got a lot more stringent recently.
>
> Currently, another friend here in Boston finally got approval to bring 
> in
> his McLaren F1s (a street and an LM) with OBD2 and all, I'll find out 
> the
> OBD2 details and post it if anyone is curious. He told me it will cost
> about half of what it cost him to bring his first, pre-OBD2 1994 F1 
> car in,
> which was around 90k.
>
> Caveat emptor and YMMV,
>
>          - Steve.
>
> p.s. George, I am not sure if it is fair to judge any car on the basis 
> of a
> rental car, I had a rental 156 1.9 JD in France for a couple of weeks, 
> it
> was anemic and thus pathetic. I am sure a 156 GTA would have made a far
> different impression.
>
>
> At 12:51 PM 1/11/2003 -0800, George Graves wrote:
>
>
> > This car was obviously brought to America by someone emigrating here 
> > or a
> > returning US serviceman who bought it for personal transport while
> > overseas. It is legal to bring cars in under both of these 
> > circumstances.
> > OTOH, its probably for sale because the  owner found that (1) nobody 
> > in
> > the US knew how to work on one and there is no source in this country 
> > for
> > manuals, and (2) no parts are available for it in this country. Hence 
> > the
> > sale. I looked at it closely on E-Bay, and it looks like a 
> > stripped-down
> > "Hertz" version with cloth seats. The 155 wasn't the greatest of Alfa
> > Sedans, nowhere near as well made as the 156 and the 4-cylinder 
> > engine is
> > anemic in that car (which is a bout the size and weight of an Accord)
> > making it dog-slow. How do I know? I've driven a similar rental 155 
> > in Europe.
> >
> > George Graves
> > '86 GTV-6
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