What exactly happened to them?

You are very correct in your statement. I was recently in Australia and fell in love with an R34 GTR there. It was very cheap ~$40,000. I thought " all I have to do is ship it to the US and get it registered and I'll have an R34 GTR for ~50,000." NOT TRUE at all.

In order for a non US vehicle to be legally brought here it,

A. Has to be on the "import eligibiliy list" (currently only the R33 is on this list) -or- You can have a registered importer "petition" the DOT to allow you to bring something not on the list in. This petition shows how you will comply with "C." below.
B. You have to get it shipped here and pay taxes upon importation.
C. You have to demonstratet hat it conforms to ALL federal motor vehicle safety standards (yes, crash testing etc..However, you would not have to crash test an R33, Thanks to Motorex))
D. It must be modified to conform to those FMVSS's that it does not conform with. The DOT must approve.
E. The EPA must approve (good luck w/ the emissions on an R34)
F. IRS must approve (yes, the fricking IRS even gets in on the deal.)
G. Then you have to deal with state and local agencies for insurance, tag, and title.

If any of these are not met with approval, your non US legal car can be destroyed or deported.

I figured the total cost to have an R34 legal in the US would be about $150,000. I've since lost interest.

However, there as a time when the R32 and R34 were legal to be imported by Motorex. They have since been "grandfathered in." and have the magical DOT release forms.

Still wanna import or buy a non US legal car?

ive heard motorex's owner got arrested on 1 mil bailbond because he was importing illegal skylines into the us. but really what happened was the government wants more money after his contract was up and they saying he didnt pay blah blah blah.

What do you mean by donations?

u send me money so i can save up and buy the car. lol

No. He only properly tested and got approval for the R33 GTR, the government granted him the right to import, title, and sell R33's, but homeboy went ahead and applied his new VIN's to R32's and R34's, which was illegal. There were also some counts of extortion, assault, etc. Basically he was a shady dude, who did 1 thing correctly, but because of his greed the government will probably never bend over backwards for import enthusiasts again.

You took the words out of my mouth. Because some A-hole screwed up, he's ruined it for everyone else. Now the GTR is pretty much black flagged as far as legal importation for a long time coming.

Why did you have to post this up 3000? You're gonna put thoughts in everyones heads... like mine.

There's actually an R33 GTS-t for sale here (Schofield Barracks HI). It's not in the greatest condition though.

Tony (would love to get his hands on an R32)

of course theres the option of putting an rb26 in the s13/s14 just no AWD. arrrrgh

I know theres a R34 here in chi-town its in the china town part for this shop. Im not so sure wat its called but i've seen it a couple times.

I think its this one. lol

http://www.pasmag.com/article.asp?ID=395

yeah and motoroex isnt importing any more cuz they got nailed as scammers.... these cars are for all practical sense "off-road" vehicles and any attempt to get it titled and registered in the states is a "bandage" at best.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_im...hicles#_note-0


Gotta love wikipedia. Explains everything about Grey imports ie what you guys are talking about, even has a little bit about Motorex in the there.
And its been done check this site out http://www.full-race.com/

This sucks. And its because the government is greedy. Give me a ture GT-R, or give me death.

This place is almost definitely BS. Especially in Cali.

You can make a skyline quasi state legal in some states (CA not being one of them), but the only federally legal one were the Motorex cars. The gov was nice enough to even allow the other generation ones they sold to remain legal so as not to punish the customers.

Even mine was totally sketchy. By the chassis number and other aspects of the car, it was clear it was produced mid to late 97, but the paperwork and title all said 96 and I think some of the paperwork even said 95. Going through that whole car, the only thing I found that they changed was they added a big *** cat.

The only one they ever did all the proper work for was a 96 R33 I believe...may have been 95.

Anyways...back on track, no company that is selling a complete GTR can ever make it federally legal.