exporting my car home to N.Z.

The bastards! A new legislation was passed that looks at the issue of frontal impact strength of all cars entering NZ. My March doesn't meet N.Z's new stricter specs and I'm not allowed to send it home when I leave Japan at the end of this year. My car is a 1993 so it's too old to qualify. If it were a 2000 or newer model it would've been sweet. I imagine you're probably thinking that I should buy a 2000 model and no problem, but the bastards have got me by the balls. In order to avoid a huge import levy, I have to have owned the car at least 21 months. This is true for my 1993 model but definitely won't be true for any car that I buy between now and leaving the country. Bugger. This next part will make you cry, so if you're sensitive stop reading now and hit the back button...

Just yesterday one of my Japanese mates asked me if I wanted his Celica because he just bought a new car and didn't want to go through the bother of getting a new W.O.F. etc for the celica so that it would be saleable. This car is nothing like new, but it is a rally classic. It's the same model that Carlos Sainz drove to victory in the late 80's early 90's thereabouts. 2000 turbo, fulltime all wheel drive 5 speed, viscous LSD, factory strut tower bracing and everything, power windows, steering mirrors, AC, leather bucket seats, alloy wheels (oz racing from factory). He is happy to give it to me for nothing as long as I pay the compulsory insurance for it which he is overdue on paying (but is about $400 NZ so not so bad). I checked the model out on the government website to see if it passes the regulations and it doesn't! Gutted! I could have taken this car home too! How can a car that is a proven rally winner be failed structurally by the transport authority??

Ahhh shite!!That really sucks.
I would have a go at em re the Celica and maybe seeing its up to rally standard structually you might be able to get somewhere.
Migrate to Aussie but most likely same red tape will be working here.

From what Cisco told me while he was here, the Australian system with regards to car imports is just as retarded as the NZ one, so not much hope there unfortunately!

I know this is a March site (sorry guys) but I have got a March so I hope you can bear with me a moment. This is the model which 'fails' the regulation.

http://www.rallycars.com/Cars/Toyota_GT4/Street_Celica_ST165.html

Bah!!! This is just terrible news Meatpie.

I wonder what we can do to get around it??

Yeah those 2000 model HK11's are just dandy and beautiful and only $6000 at Nissan's CarZeta factory in Yokohama with such low Kms compared to Nz/Aus driving etc.

Far out. Wouldn't there have to be some dodgy way?
Like could you mysteriously swap cars in Japan or could you say the car was for racing back in NZ not for road driving, then it gets mixed in to the country and you get it registered somehow?

Damn, there must be some dodgy way.

Can you take your march home as a wreck for parts?

I'm sure there is a way around it but the benefits are skeptical. since my March only has (basically) cosmetic modifications it is probably just best that I strip the bits that I've put on, return the original parts and give the car away to another ex-pat (since it still has over a year left on the WOF and rego and runs perfectly it would be a waste to have it crushed). But that just leaves me with no car and a few bits and pieces to put on another March if I can find one in NZ.

The real shame (sorry) is the Celica. It's a reasonably rare model. It was a homologated model for group A. It's a REAL full time 4WD (none of this electronic fake 4WD rubbish) with the REAL rally engine and transmission etc. It really is something special that is guaranteed to go to the crusher if I don't take it off this guys hands. The dilema is that at what point is it uneconomical to bring back a car? If I were to get the most out of the situatiion I would have to import the car as parts, strip all the car out have the bare shell destroyed then buy another standard celica that was already in the country before the legislation change and so is deemed to be safe (yeah go figure) then swap the gear over. So then I'd have a mongrel car rather than the genuine article that has the all important matching engine and chassis numbers detracting from its value as a collecters item.

AAAAaaaaaarrrg!!!!

Take the cosmetic stuff off your march - make it all stock and sell it.

Wreck the GT4 and bring it back to NZ. Even in pieces it will be worth a mint if its a genuine Group A...


You SHOULD be able to just import the car as a rolling wreck... I'm pretty certain we're able to do that here in australia anyway, and your import laws are much more reasonable than ours!

Yes Meatpie bring back the GT4 some way or other.
Shite mate its a classic and well you would own a very rare beast indeed.
Mate you do not get many chances at stuff like this. Do not let it go.

Idea!!
Talk to Errol at Datrats as he has a lot of contacts in N.Z.who are in the import business and may be able to help get it in one way or another or maybe into Aussie and then to N.Z.
Cost a bit more this way but maybe some way to get around the regs.
Good luck mate.

Once a car is 20 years old, it doesn't have to meet the standards. That Celica should be old enough to get on the road here in a couple of years.
I thought that if you were moving to NZ & had owned the car long enough, it was exempt. Need to check further

Cheers for all your input guys. I suppose the worst case is that I import the car, garage it and take my time restoring it while I wait for the 20 year old car thing law to come into effect (if that is the case: cheers A.J.) and then register it. If it can't be registered then I just have an undriveable classic collecting dust except for the occasional trailer and show day, which aint much fun. You're right Dave, chances like these don't come along everyday, but they happen here in Japan more than is sensible! Even so, you've pretty much convinced me that I should get it home one way or another. I used to have a Celica GT 2Litre DOHC twin sideys etc 1979 liftback when I was younger and stupider, and I wrote it off trying to be Carlos Sainz (back in NZ). I hope history doesn't repeat! The GT4 has about 80% more power. ;-]. I feel guilty for talking about Toyotas on this site, but maybe we've shed some light on a subject that maybe relevant to other site members at some stage. Don't get caught out by sneaky law changes that happen behind your back!

I'll keep u posted.
Ta,
Meatpie

Good on you Meatpie.
Think positive mate and bring it back in .
I am sure once you get it back one way or another you will get it on the road.
Do not let beaucrats rule !!!
No mate talking about Toyotas or for that matter any special rare model is fine.
Nothing wrong with Toyotas!!

It's worked out from when you imported it, so if you bring it in tomorrow and keep it in a garage for 10years you still imported it in July 2005 and that's the date they use.
And these are the K11 March/Micra's you can import:

March HK11 From chassis: HK11-141147 onwards
March K11 From chassis: K11-374259 onwards

All the chassis numbers you can import into NZ are here:

http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/importing/frontal-impact-compliance-status.html

Well, I'm gonna try to get round this somehow, maybe I'll have to get a bare shell that was registered in the past and spend a month swapping all the gear over. As long as the car has been NZ registered at some point I assume it'll be okay because the chassis number will be on record. Anyway, it's too late now coz I picked the car up yesterday. It's a BEAST!

Wish me luck.

I'm coming home for good in January next year. If anyone is coming to work in Japan and wants my March let me know. It'll still have a year of 'shaken' (WOF) and 2 months of insurance remaining when I leave. The shaken is expensive to get especially for an old car, so the year of shaken that's left is a big bonus to whoever takes it.

I'll be looking to help my employers find a replacement for me before I leave, so if any you guys/gals looking for a stint in Nihon Cisco? Seano? tell me soon so I can whisper the sweet nothings to the appropriate people. No guarantees though.

Righto

Awesome. That's the right attitude mate. Buy the car first, work out how to get it home later! Good luck with it, you'll pull it off somehow.

Ahh Nippon, I'm unable to head over for a stint at this stage. But it would be awesome and thanks for the offer mate. I've been thinking about the possibility of just a 1 year visit, I could go on leave without pay from my job etc, but I think I'd stuff my job around a fair bit and not sure what I'd come back to. I might be able to get 8 weeks leave, in which case, that would be just awesome.

At this stage, I'm just planning to go back in March for another month. If I only go a month at a time, I will never get sick of it :) But the downside is that you never hang around for long enough to get fluent enough in the language :) heh.

Hey tell me if you see any of those electronic dart boards! haha. Even if you know a good shop that sells them somewhere, I might be able to get one sent home next visit.

You're welcome for the job offer Cisco, no prob.

Yeah the electronic dartboards should be no sweat, I'll ask Karl (the bar owner where we went drinking in Shizuoka) to tell me how much his one cost and where he got it.

Thanks for the 'import' support. I'm determined to succeed by hook or by crook. Arr arrrr me hearties!

Does anyone mind if I put a small pic of my free GT4 on this post? Ohh yeah, by the way Cisco, you remember 'up garage'? (I always think of The Young Ones 'up scumbag!' when I see this shop). I found a black GTRi Pulsar S?20DET with a soccer ball size dent in the right rear quarter being sold as a wreck for 50,000yen yesterday. It's a sick country.

Ohh yeah, and there's a perfectly good abandoned BE1 just down the road too; it's been parked up in a bit of waste land for about 2 years with the boot half open. Sick sick sick, not a bad looking caboose the BE1.

B*stard!! Make us even more jealous!!

Unfortunately I have to wait 3-4 years to gain my degree (while also studying Japanese) so can't take you up on it...

Thanks though Kel

Good luck getting the car back in

Seano

Hehe, cheers Seano :-)

Kelly, definately post a pic for us mate :)

Here she is, complete with 3inch exhaust all the way through, parked outside my house. I had it idling while I was taking the picture and the guy who runs a juku accross the road came over and asked me to switch it off coz it was distracting his students. hehe. Being the nice bloke that I am, I apologised and did.

niice!

Mate thats a classic in 4wd turbo..

It seems like yesterday i remember King Carlos rolling and rolling and rolling his Celica..

I don't think i could get rid of that car if it was mine.
It looks mint, very cool ride

Ta guys, thanks for the support and the advice to go for it. I think it was the right choice. Yeah, I remember that rolling Carlos scene too, it was a beauty! I didn't look like it was gonna stop!

Mate it is a genuine classic.Even if down the track you sell it it will be worth heaps.
Glad to see you are going to bring it back.Good luck mate and keep us all posted how it all works out.
Its okay to use the word mate now.Thank you John Howard.

Maaaaate! cheers!

Hey Kel!!

Awesome car mate!!!

A hint though, take out all the little things like guages, cd player, fancy schamnschy interior bits etc... So that they don't get rorted on the docks...

Seano

lucky i want free cars

Does your friend have a free S15 for me?

Seano

Seano you belong to the dark side. Do not even think of leaving.
Darth.

Good thinking to take out all easily pinchable goodies before exporting. I hear so much stuff gets flogged from the docks in NZ and other places. I'll make sure I go and collect the stuff as soon as it arrives in port. I've also got my pilot scale brewery in the shipment, I don't want any o' that equipment vanishing either.

S15 Seano? Hmmmm no, but there's a skyline...that wouldn't be so traitor-like, after all it's from the Nissan stable.

Dave M8, I'm the biggest traitor of them all because of my GT4 , BUT I promise to get another March in NZ for day to day driving. I still love my March. :-)

You are excused because of the GT4. Its very unique and you will not get another chance like this.

Sorry to be a pedantic little bastard, but thats one of my pet peevs...


Unique means one of a kind. ie: Uluru is one of a kind. Uluru does not exist anywhere else in the world.

Although it is rare, there are more than one Celica GT4 Group A's in the world. There it cannot be unique (without going into the nitty gritty of mechanical condition, dents, rims/rubber, suspension etc etc etc).

The americans and the media have ruined the meaning of the word unique.

:P


However yes it is a VERY special car.

Honestly Tom shut up

Sean

Tom,

These forums are to talk about cars (mainly the micra and other related cars/topics) not stupid political crap.

You post an awful lot of crap that's not related to cars. Just consider the internet users coming on from search engines and reading this rubbish. It clogs up the forums with garbage.

Keep it micra/car related please.

We need some more informal message boards. Simple. Or, well I do anyway. Can I have my own section? lol

Okee dokee, I think it's time to put a cap on this thread, thanks again for all the encouragement to date.

What? Where the hell did that pic come from? I didn't attach that!!! I haven't even got that pic on my computer!!! Ciiiisco. . .what happened?

Yay for random pic attachment!!! Its been happening for a while now Kelly...


... I've turned it into a game

Seano

Yeah, I'll fix it right now. Its ok, an instant fix.
All wrong pics will instantly be removed..

Basically its because I left all the images from the old forums in the images directory. Since the forums got wiped, we are approaching messageIDs that we used to use to represent old messages, so now it is finding images that people uploaded for old messages that used to have the same message id. Technical explanation for those who were interested hah.

Ha ha haaaaa! I just got this email from the NZ land transport authority this morning. Cheers NZ_AJ, looks like you were right! Thanks for planting that seed in my mind...

Hello Kelly,

Thanks for your enquiry in regard to importing your two cars. I advise
as follows :-

* As you have not given me any details on the Nissan March I
cannot give you any specific advice on that other than to say that if it
was manufactured before 1/1/96 it probably will not comply with NZ
import regulations unless it is over 20 years old
* In regard to the 87 Celica GT4 I advise that under the
requirements of the Frontal Impact Rule it does not comply but with the
vehicle being an 87 model it does become 20 years old in 2007. You
could import the vehicle and store it until then, and when it is 20
years old present it at an Entry Certifier to put it on the road here.
* A vehicle cannot be upgraded to comply with the rules after
manufacture, nor can it be certified by an engineer as safe and get on
the road that way

I trust this clarifies the situation for you

Regards

***name***
Technical Information Advisor
yipee yai yay

Oh good news. 1.5 years to do what you want with it before it hits the road.
It will be worth it.Strip it down fully and bling bling it so it hits the road like new.

Congrats big guy!