Hello All,

I'm not an Evo owner just yet but someday I will be. Anyways

Here is the story. I am on a U.S. naval ship on international waters. I qualify for a duty and tax free vehicle. I spoke to a mitsubishi rep and he said upon request I could export a Evo VIII and have it left hand steering wheel. Now with this said. He said the Evo will be 6spd and have ACD. Now my question is has anyone looked into this? I can't believe this information to be correct. I have a brochure and looked at mitsubishi-cars.co.uk and both state left hand driving available upon request. On the mistsu site it is under service then export.

I want to know what you guys think about this before I "dive" into this deal. There is no way I can see the car before I purchase unless I hit port in the uk and go to a mitsu dealer and speak to them about this.

Thanks for your thoughts..

 

I know a guy who did that with a Porsche 996tt but it was a r.o.w. (rest of the world) car so he did not have a problem with EPA and emissions testing in the US. Look into the testing and if that is not a problem (are you going to drive the car in the US) I would check into the FQ330, same as the 300 just a little more hp. Call you local (whoever that might be) secratary of state office and see what they think. Also need to think about DOT certs (crash bars, marker lights...). I did a Porsche 928gt from Germany a while ago and it was a total pain to get EPA, DOT, and Michigan to sign off on the car before I title it. Being in the military you guys (and gals) might get those things waived.

 

I think what i heard is that it is possible for him to bring the car over but he couldnt sell it and if he did that person couldnt drive it on the roads. Could be wrong but i am pretty sure

 

You can bring the car over . But you cannot registor the car under your local motor vehicles division. Basiclly it can be a track car. But that is what I was told by one of the MVA officers in my area.

 

The car wouldn't be a UK model, but a grey-import UK model, brought in from mainland Europe. A lot of people in the UK buy LHD models on the Continent (generally from the Netherlands or Germany) for deep discounts and bring them back to the UK. If you could get a German-spec Evo VIII, that would be OUTSTANDING!!! Good luck and keep us informed.

 

Good Luck trying to get the car insured!

 

You need to check with customs and the NHTSA and find out what the laws are. I lived in England for three years and know a few people who looked into doing just this but it was waaaay to costly.

 

Most UK/European exporters know what they can export. They don't nec know the rules and regs behind what is registerable once that export lands in the US or elsewhere.

That being said, it is generally accepted that if you are not importing a car that is EXACTLY similar to the car that you see for sale on the Mitsu dealership floor, you will not be able to register it for use on the roads in the US easily...unless you live in SC or FLA...where it it fairly easy to register a horse with a license plate and call it a US spec Mustang. :P

Being left hand drive isn't a requirement for a car imported to the US. Things like it having a speedo that reads in mph, having the proper lighting, having the proper bumper supports, having the necessary emissions components, having the door beam structure, the VIN has to be of the US style and nomenclature.

But if you can find a car that is 25 years or older, you can import and register that car easily.

Just wait till you get back to the US and buy a US spec car.


SC~

 

I think as long as you're going through all the trouble to import and federalize an Evo, you might as well get something really different. Like a nice Evo 6 Tommi Makinen Edition!!! That would be my pick.

A UK-spec FQ-300 will be much more expensive than the USDM Evo 8 even before the whole federalization process. Not really worth it just for S-AYC, ACD, and a notchy 6-speed box. Right now you can get a brand new '03 USD EVO 8 for around $28,500. A couple of thousand bucks will get you 300+ crank HP no prob.

Emre

 

A German-spec car will meet most of these. The only questions will be in some of the lights (easily swapped for US-spec), emissions (ditto) and gauges (last ditto). I would love to see someone pull this off.

 

True. I would love to see someone pull it off too.

What I would do is buy a wrecked Evo shell, remove all vin plaques, import a Eurospec Evo and replace all vins with the ones from the wrecked car. Register the car as a salvaged vehicle.

Or you could remove the drive train, interior, engine, shell and ship them all seperately. Take ownership of the 'car parts' in the US and reassemble the car. Go to the dmv and register as a kit/replica.

SC~

 

I can tell you first hand it is a PIA, I did it with a German Spec 928gt and it sucked. I took anbout 18mo to get everything done. I had to photograph and document everything for dot. Only good thing was the last thing I had to do was have a city Cop (super nice guy) come out to the house and sign off on the all of the mods. If was funny b/c I could tell the guy knew the last test was to drive the car and he was not sure what I would think about him driving the car. We get to to the drive test and I said "lets go" I knew from the look on his face the car had "passed", only thing he said after the drive was "sorta loud but everything looks intact". After the certs were done I put the German gauges back in and it was cool having to the way she was meant to be. I miss it now!

 

I been doing a lot of asking around here onboard and sending emails out to dealerships about the reg on importing. From what everyone has been saying a lot of regs get waived generally because I am military. As far as registration all I have to do is fill out paperwork and it gets sent to the states and someone else takes it from there.


Tax & Duty Free
Only pay shipping to the states, I have the option of having it shipped to a dealer or my house.


Here are some price quotes for some mitsubishi/colt cars. I highly doubt this is U.S. I think it is euro. I am not sure. Also I did not know there were four versions of the evo.


Evo VIII $23999
Evo VIII 260 $20999
Evo FQ300 $25999
Evo FQ330 $28999


The price quotes came from a message traffic like email. It is kind of hard to explain but the evo wasnt the only car listed there were also other brands listed along with different models. The email is a 4 part email. I onyl received the bottom two. If I can get the top 2 I have find out what currency that is. But my best bet is Euro.


I'll keep you guys posted.

 

Man, be wary. "someone else takes it from there." You seem to have no idea about the details involved. If you pony up $30k for an imported vehicle and you are seriously just hoping that others will take care of the issues, you will likely make a very expensive mistake.

Getting the car to the US is the easy part. Anyone in the military or anyone willing to pay the shipping fee can get a car onto US soil. Shipping a car on a RoRo freighter ship is only like $1000 from the UK. It's free if you are in the military and are ok'd to bring back your vehicle.

Once on US soil, your car will have to go through customs. The Federal govt customs agents look over your vehicle with a fine tooth comb. If it is not approved to be in this country, it will be impounded. The impound lot at US ports are littered with tons of exotic sheet metal that was not allowed int he US. These cars, once impounded, have to either get exported or crushed.

Getting the car past the Federal customs agents might be a little easier for you since your stuff will come in at a military port and not a civilian shipping port. But I do not know this for sure.

So if your car makes it past the customs agents and is not impounded and ordered exported or crushed, you have to get it registered. But getting it registered to drive in your state is where your biggest problem will be. You will have to apply for a state title before you can register your vehicle with your state. People normally apply for a state title when they buy a used car. They usually have the old state title signed over to them from the previous owner. A car that is imported from another country will not have a US title document. You will have to apply for an imported car title. To do that you have to provide certain pieces of documentation that proves your car is up to all federal standards and that the car is 100% similar to a US spec car. If it is not 100% the same, you will have to provide documentation showing that modification work has been completed to bring the car up to spec. Or if your car is of the correct age(25 years or older), you show the documentation from the country of origin that shows this.

Not one state in the US will allow the straight registration of an imported/non US titled car that is less than 25 yrs old.

So are you really up to dealing with all this? Are you willing to risk that the $30k you just spent on a car that get impounded and crushed? If it is not crushed, do you have the knowledge regarding how you will export that car and sell it on foreign soil? Once it is here, do you understand how your DMV works? Do you know where to go to get the car federalized? Do you know exactly what is needed to federalize a car?

You have lots of questions to answer to yourself. And I don't mean to sound harsh at all. I just want to make sure you really know what you are getting yourself into.

SC~ who has imported an old car from the UK.

 

The shipping ports are not Military...they are contracted civilian companies. I know this for sure cause I am military and shipped my Chrysler to England and back when I was stationed there. But as stated earlier, if you don't have the paperwork to prove you have gone through the right channels to get the vehicle cleared, it will be impounded by customs.

To get a car imported can take up to 8 months. There is a lot of paperwork involved and each step of it causes the vehicle to be examined or in "their" hands for a certain period of time. Like I said earlier, get all the information you need before deciding to do this. I worked with people who wanted to import German BMW's and the hassel was way too high as was the price!