Iron Chef

They do exist, mine's done 25,000km since 2001, and I've got books and the de-reg papers

Just a reminder that the showdown is on this weekend!!

This.

Sideways step - from one shit car into another...

^^ Correct Duncan, a similar thing happened with series 4 RX-7s with base models being brought in new ex-Japan and undercutting the local models by a good margin. From memory, part of how the system worked back then was that there was a bit of arm twisting from the car manufacturers that wanted to take a swipe at the importers for using their name, hence the Nissan Skyline GT-R became the Scuderia GT-R so Scuderia didn't get their arses sued.

I'm happy with how my resale is travelling *smug smile*

You've got a PM

^^+1 it's cheap because it's high kms and modified. If it's dealer stock bear in mind that there would still be a question mark over whether or not the car has rust or accident history, but Ben can get it inspected for you. It's a good buy if everything checks out legit, for sure.

We hit 106 at one point in 2007, I still remember those days very well! Bear in mind that currency fluctuations are always soften by increased purchase prices in Japan - in other words, when people set their budgets and the rate goes up, it usually means they just pay more money for their cars in Japan. To the best of my knowledge, America has scanned some of the containers coming in from Japan and has cleared them - there's more shipping related coverage on this site if you have a dig around. *edit* it's all under one sub-heading: http://www.joc.com/maritime/japan-disaster

If the car is fresh into the country, then it's a few days wait to get a booking at VicRoads for the ID inspection - I learnt this one myself recently. As much as I normally love to sink the boot in when it comes to dealers, this doesn't sound out of the ordinary to me.

I think DoTaRS are taking a closer look at it Chris, particularly as Japan has changed its testing procedures for emissions in recent times to be more like what they do here. The biggest issue is the cost of the test itself for late model cars, I've heard figures of $30-40K bandied about, which makes it bloody hard to recoup those costs without charging a crazy amount for compliance. Ideally, we want DoTaRS to recognise the Japanese testing procedures as being valid here, once that's done, it will be a matter of providing the Japanese emissions paperwork to pass, same as they do with cars from the US now.

The last one with the Eurolines does it for me, for sure.

Oh ok, I just thought with higher kms and a rim change, it might have been the same one - there aren't that many red R34s around the place.

Can we get an update on this one? Only reason I ask is that I spotted this in the DRIVE ads at the top of the forum, the kms look to match what I remember the car having when it was first imported. Was it recovered in the end? http://www.drive.com.au/used/search/detail.aspx?id=15027560&lid=15027560&s_cid=43310

I HEARD THAT!

For the record, PRIMO passed on a copy-and-paste of my info to my agent in Japan, and from there it went around the auctions like wildfire, till I got a panicked call from another agent I use in Tokyo asking what the hell was going on! Evidently April Fools isn't a big thing in Japan, making them all ripe for the picking haha

Just to clarify, my agent paid a 3rd party inspector to go and check it, and it was this clown who managed to miss it (whether he even checked it over or not is a matter of conjecture), but between this other bloke's description and the high grading given by the auction house, there was no reason to suspect anything was wrong with it. My agent still paid the money to bring the car to Kobe rather than ship it out direct, so he could check it over himself, bloody lucky he did (although like I said, cars such as these can and have been registered before anyway). My agent tried to file a claim with the auction house over the misleading auction sheet, but you only get 7 days after the auction to lodge it, and it took longer than a week for them to transport the car up to Kobe. The auction house did contact us later to say the inspector who wrote the auction sheet in question "had been assigned other duties" over it - cold comfort for us at the time. Like I said, this all happened over three years ago, I've long since been able to find buyers who are "on the ground" at the Kyushu auctions. We chalked the losses on the first one up to experience and moved on, it was the losses on the second GT-R we weren't prepared to accept. Thanks Terry for your contribution

Mark, seriously, you need to settle down. I wasn't having a crack at you, and I wasn't being sarcastic, so un-knot your knickers. I wasn't attempting to turn this into a pissing contest about who has spent more time in Japan, but just for your reference, I also lived there for two years, so I've also seen the other side of Japan that you're referring to. By the same token, I don't see why you should need to take offense just because I don't agree with what you're saying - just because I don't share the same opinion as you doesn't automatically mean I'm wrong (and it works in the opposite direction too).

Ugh I couldn't think of anything worse, on a number of fronts...

True - cars would be the wrong kind of green to be selling...

On the upside, it's gonna do wonders for the resale of imported cars already here...

Ok I just got word back from my ‘mole’ inside DoTaRS that there are some MAJOR changes planned for SEVS regarding vehicle emissions, and what’s worse, some of them will be retrospective and will apply to cars already complied! 1) Like the NZ import scheme, SEVS eligibility will soon be limited to cars that meet the Japanese ‘TA’ emissions scheme or later if they’re ex-Japan (that means no cars prior to about 2001 will be eligible for import). For the Skyline range, this will rule out all R32s, all R33s and virtually all R34s (did any R34s meet TA regs or were they all GF?), but V35 and V36 will still be ok. Evos prior to Evo 7 will be out. Supras will all be out. JZX100 Chasers will be canned, but JZX110s will be ok. US-built vehicles are not affected because their emissions regs are stricter than ours anyway. 2) Cars ALREADY imported under SEVS will be tracked down via NEVDIS (the national database for vehicle identification) and owners contacted. The plan is to make owners submit their vehicles for annual emissions inspections to ensure that their vehicles meet the regulations they were complied under. Cars complied under the old scheme prior to SEVS will be exempt, as will cars imported under the pre-’89 rule. 3) The plan is to move SEVS more in the green-car direction, so they will soon allow hybrid models of cars already sold here in Australia to be imported – for example, the Tarago is sold in Japan as the Estima Hybrid, that will be allowed for import. Well there goes my business, unless I move to Nimbin and use the tree huggers as my new target market...

No, they can't, unless they're pre-89.