Race/rally Imports

[Risking]

Ive bought a few cars through ichi bahn here in Sydney.

I went there yesterday to buy another and was having a chat to the guys.

They were saying that dotars are no longer issuing import approvals for race only cars.

They had 3 cars there in the last few weeks a 180sx, Silvia and a GTR. They had to argue with dotars (court process apparently) to obtain import approval for these 3 cars. They also have to provide proof that these last cars were sold for race use.

Has anyone else heard of or know of the race rally imports being knocked on the head?

Kinda sucks making it harder to find cheap race cars to build from.

[zebra]

It might be something to do with the new rules regarding modified cars not being allowed to be brought in anymore.

It does sound a bit silly being able to bring race cars in though

[evil_weevil]

A workmate is looking at buying a race only car - he was under the impression to buy once of these cars from ichi - you had to show/have a CAMS PC licence or similar.

is this the case?

If it were sure Ichi could still bring and sell them to the right people!

[Risking]

Yeah that's right chris you do need to provide a CAMS license and sign a stat deck to say you bought it for Motorsport purposes.

Even then the guys were saying no more

[zebra]

Do you still need Cams Lvl 3 and above to get the race/rally cars?

or did they scale it back to L2?

[phunky_monkey]

Still 3 as far as I'm aware.

[zebra]

thought so

thanks

[irokin]

From: http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/roads/vehicle_regulation/bulletin/importing_vehicles/general/pdf/VSB10_info_brochure_july_2011.pdf

At a minimum, the following criteria must be met:

• Eligible vehicles for rally/race use are those homologated by the Federation Internationale de

l’Automobile (FIA). These vehicle models can be found listed at

www.fia.com/homologations/Voit_Pays.html. (broken link)

• Under normal circumstances, applicants will be restricted to importing a single vehicle and acceptable

reasons will need to be provided to import another vehicle for rally/race use.

• Road vehicles for rally use are imported on the condition that they will only be used in the course of

competition, practice associated with competition and transport to and from a rally location.

• The applicant must lodge with their application a statement that the vehicle will only be used for rally

purposes together with a copy of a current CAMS R3 or higher-grade licence. For closed circuit racing

the applicant must lodge with their application a statement that the vehicle will only be used for closed

circuit racing purposes together with a copy of a current CAMS C3 or higher grade licence.

....

if the vehicle is a model available in the Australian vehicle market, justification for the need to import

the vehicle (cost of the vehicle in the domestic market will not generally be considered an acceptable

justification).

emphasis mine.

AFAIK the S13 and on chassis' were never homologated with the FIA so theres the 180SX and Silvia out from the get go.

Wouldn't surprise me if they're saying there's enough GTRs (and silvias/180sx) to purchase locally, presuming it was a BNR32 and actually had FIA homologation.

How does ichi bahn operate? Import race only vehicles and then sell them on or just as an agent? Could it be an issue with the single vehicle requirement?