Grey Imports

I Was VB

...Very 1997 title!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYIyWOaoeuA

Looking at the above video, were they really that wary of buying JDM cars back in the late '90's? There's still plenty of family jap saloons still on the road from the mid '90's. Were the savings that good?

Atlantic Dawn

Yes the cars were bought very cheaply because the currencies were strong against the Yen and because the Japanese had strict car testing that meant most stuff over 4 or 5 years old would not pass their tests and so could be bought up cheaply over there.

Not sure what lots were initially shipped to Ireland and then shipped to UK, possibly some taxation reason that made it cheaper to have them initially land here as first EU point, pay the duty and then re export without VRT to the UK.

ShadowHearth

What's the problem with service? I know it's 1997, but in skyline I can use same oils filter as micra... If car is same but just rebadged as jap car, parts are same. Dealers just being dicks.

I know good few lads were refused to sell them parts by dealers, because theyr cars were imports...

L1011

There were specific, awkward problems in servicing and repairing Eunos Roadsters vs. UKDM MX-5's at the time from what I remember - some different parts were effectively unavailable to Mazda's dealer network at the time.

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Not sure what lots were initially shipped to Ireland and then shipped to UK, possibly some taxation reason that made it cheaper to have them initially land here as first EU point, pay the duty and then re export without VRT to the UK.

The majority of the demand was here, due to our insanely expensive cars. Still seems to be more boggo standard Jap imports here than anywhere else in Europe - I've never seen a Jap import VW Golf anywhere else for instance!

zilog_jones

Ireland already had an established industry of used Japanese imports, maybe that's why they did it that way? It never became common in the UK outside of sports cars and oddities like the Figaro, Mazda Bongo Friendee/Ford Freda, Nissan Cube, etc. Thanks to the internet these days it's much easier to buy the cars more directly and have some chance of getting a service history or at least an auction sheet.

I don't think the Shaken (Japanese roadworthiness inspection thing) is really much stricter than the NCT or MOT, the problem seems that the general population there get mechanics to bring it through the test for them and do necessary repairs - obviously much more of a money racket than the "pre-NCT" tests here. AFAIK if you bring it yourself you actually drive the car yourself through the test centre - a bit more work than here, but not exactly rocket science either.

zilog_jones

MYOB wrote: »

Still seems to be more boggo standard Jap imports here than anywhere else in Europe - I've never seen a Jap import VW Golf anywhere else for instance!

Well most of Europe is LHD
But Malta isn't:

L1011

zilog_jones wrote: »

Well most of Europe is LHD
But Malta isn't:

Good point, well made


You do however see RHD imports of Jap performance cars in the LHD countries the odd time.

There was a place in Cork, The Sports Car Centre that used to import loads of jappers, went t1ts up due to currency rates or something I think. I used to work in a factors from the mid 90s to 00 and quite a few mechanics weren't overly fond of servicing some of them due to pads being different etc. I spent many hours going through brake pad pictures trying to match pads for lads. Body panels on some yokes were difficult to get too. I think it was an exagerated thing though, sort of a pub talk carry on. Some of the jap stuff was rotten though.

Guy:Incognito

Always amazed me how every Japanese car was gotten rid of with exactly 50,000 km's on them

Del2005

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Not sure what lots were initially shipped to Ireland and then shipped to UK, possibly some taxation reason that made it cheaper to have them initially land here as first EU point, pay the duty and then re export without VRT to the UK.

The UK originally wouldn't allow direct imports from outside the EU, protecting their car industry. So they used drive off the front of the boat to be registered here, then loaded onto the back of the boat. Was a handy little earner for us with all the import duty, after a while we got lazy and they just sailed into our waters to register the cars then straight to the UK. Eventually the UK allowed direct imports and got all the import duty.

Max_Damage

Has anyone else noticed the surge in European JDM cars here in the past few years (i.e. Volkswagens, Mercedes, Audi's, and Mini's being the most popular)?







They're always easily identified for having the American style recess on the boot but in RHD.

Max_Damage

zilog_jones wrote: »

Well most of Europe is LHD
But Malta isn't:

Russia (mostly the far eastern part) is full of JDM RHD cars. I remember reading somewhere that in the large cities in the far east (i.e. Vladivostok), about 90% of all cars there are RHD JDM imports.

Even Canada is getting alot of them too!

zilog_jones

Oh yeah I forgot about Russia, but they're special I think they're trying to clamp down on that though, or maybe that was some other Eastern European country. I believe in some countries it is impossible to register a RHD at all.

In Canada it seems to be a niche market with "ricers", much like in the UK. And they are much more limited in that it the car has to be over 15 years old, so for example it'll be another 3 years before they can import R34 Skylines!

Terrontress

zilog_jones wrote: »

Well most of Europe is LHD
But Malta isn't:

When I was in Japan, all the European cars I could see were LHD for the Japanese market. Apparently it is a bit of a status thing but I spoke to a Japanese guy who said that they are made in Europe and that is the way they are made there. I told him that we get Mercs etc in RHD and he seemed surprised.

Strangely enough though they also sell Jags in LHD in Japan, even though they are made in an RHD country.

robtri

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Not sure what lots were initially shipped to Ireland and then shipped to UK, possibly some taxation reason that made it cheaper to have them initially land here as first EU point, pay the duty and then re export without VRT to the UK.

IIRC

they where shipped here first to get around the UK Japan import rules... if a car was imported from Japan it had to remain in customs for X amount of days, all the time it was there it was building up charges for remaining at the port. The was put in place by the UK government to try to help increase the cost of the imports to help the uK car industry....

So to get around it, they imprted the cars to ireland drove them up the north and shipped them across.... as they where now european imports no rules applied....

Big Nasty

Was big business at the time for Jap Import boys to sell on cars to the UK on ZZ's. You would have UK lads coming over her to pick up cheap cars, and not just performance stuff.