Anyone done a personal import?

[quartermain]

I'd be very interested to hear stories of personal imports, ie what the process was, how much hassle, what went wrong, and whether the savings in the end were worth doing it.

[BrownBear]

Hi,

Sadly there are no savings to be made at all :( I've looked at them (over about 5 years or so) and the NSX's in Japan still command comparable money to those in the UK - you may find one that's just a tiny bit cheaper, but mostly if you import one from Japan you will have paid a bit more than you would have if you had bought a UK one.

If you look here, there are links to some Japanese car search websites

http://www.nsxcb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=282

If you compare the prices to Skyline or other cars of a similar age, you'll see what I mean.

Eg:

This is a 1993 Skyline GTR 32
http://www.carsensor.net/cgi-bin/CS/CSFBU050.cgi?STID=CS210610&TRCD=TR012&BKKN=D150010509&KTCS=F0A000000131000059000381300006100000AAAA00000 0099990000Z0000000000000000000000**NI_95*gtr

up for 1,860,000 Yen (£9865). It's the most expensive GTR32 on this search page.

Compared with the cheapest NSX (also 1993)
http://www.carsensor.net/cgi-bin/CS/CSFBU050.cgi?STID=CS210610&TRCD=TR012&BKKN=H129400301&KTCS=F0A00Y000011999999000000000000000000AAAA00000 0099990000Z0000000000000000000000**HO_16*nsx

which is 3,780,000 Yen (£19738) before you ship, SVA, pay Gordon etc

( Obviously these are random samples - I didn't look through the other search sites, just chose 'Most expensive GTR32 vs Cheapest NSX' - there may be variations, but the general values are indicative, I think)

Sorry, but unless you get very lucky it is usually cheaper to buy one already here...
:(

Cheers
Joe

[jaytip]

hmmm,that may be the case when buying from the east Joe,but i think that if you dont mind sitting on the left then there are some good buys to be had from the states right now bearing in mind the strength of the $.
i looked at a facelifted model on prime(02 or 03) and with the current exchange rate it worked out to be in the low to mid 30's.
factor in the shipping and the vehicle value for customs and duty(which can easily be lowered as you are buying from a private party and i think that a few thousand can definatly be saved.

[Welshman]

Yes, the Japanese like their NSXs too much so personal import from there is most likely a waste of time.

If you were going to base the car in Europe then with the strength of the £ it might be an option to import from the US.

[jaytip]

i just had a look on prime,and theres a red 2002 targa for sale for UNDER £29500.now that would surely save someone thousands of pounds over the equivalent right hand drive model.