To those who are skeptical, it does happen and i wasn't being pulled over, convicted of anything, etc. I just had homeland security come to my house (after owning the car for about a week, (agents said it was just bad timing on my part nothing triggered it i just owned the car at the time)) in Houston, TX and tell me that my gtr was illegally imported and needs to be seized. They said that they are cracking down on all "illegal" skylines in the country and it was part of some big skyline investigation or some crap. I have the seizure warrant if anyone wants proof.

By "illegal" they mean r32's and 34s without DOT bond releases. There is NO WAY for me to get it back as a race car, show car, offroad, etc. The car is not technically significant, prepped for track, etc to qualify for those sections, so i am being forced to export it. Lets not get into the debate about legal versus not legal in this thread. I was just another one of those guys who thought that titled, registered meant legal, but now i know after talking with many head honchos at DOT.

Ship it to canada i thought, but my lawyer says i cant export to NAFTA countries (USA, mexico, canada), which sucks. My plan is to re-import the car when it is 25 years old to the US (100% legal). It is a '90 now and probably built in '89. It is immaculate so i would like to store it somewhere until it is 25 years old.

Now i need some advice/contacts for someone who can maybe "babysit" the car or tell me somewhere i can store it for relatively cheap. I know i could send the car to the UK, just dont know anyone there or what is involved with importing a car into the country.

So any other countries that are logistically easy to get to (virgin islands, bahamas, central america, UK/england, etc). Anyone know skyline importation laws in any non-NAFTA countries???

Here are a few pics of the car the day i had to turn it into customs.



Any help would be appreciated.

Ugh.

Huge bummer.

All I can say is this: When people criticize us for "outing" these wannabe importers, THIS is why we do it.

I'm so sorry to hear of this jam you're in. I wish I could be of more assistance, but once a car comes to the attention of the authorities, you can bet they're not going to rest until they have it in hand.

thanks man. But even though they have it, my lawyer can get it back, but i will just have to export it. I cant sell it for crap overseas so im trying to find a cheap storage place somewhere in UK maybe where i can store it for 5 years and have someone i trust go there and start it up once in a while.

Im trying the UK skyline forums as well, hopefully someone there is nice enough with a lot of land to keep it on.

Thomas,

How long will custom's hold it for you to do something with it?Have they said what they will do with it if you don't ship it out of country? Do they crush it? Auction it?

With zero knowledge of the situation, I would guess that the Bahamas might be your best bet as it's very close to the US and from what I understand, have very few laws regarding importation of cars.

I know that one of NICO's more popular members lived in the Bahamas.. PantherRacer... zer...15635

Perhaps he still has family there? Perhaps he can lend some knowledge and help you out.

How come sky-kit's website doesn't work???

im not sure how long they will hold it, but it was seized a few weeks ago and i am talking with my lawyer about getting a petition for release, which he says takes 60-90 days, so i am assuming a long time for it to sit in customs.

They did say they would have to crush it if i didnt fight to get it back. Usually they put things back into service if it is US spec, but in this case, they would crush it, a shame i'd say.

I will talk to him about the bahamas, that might be a good choice, however i dont know how expensive a storage unit it there, hmmm.

oh, skykit, they still owe me $14000 from when they supposedly could import me a GTR.

Please don't be offended by this question.. but I'm just curious to know>>

How much money are you out now on this whole skyline importation thing?

$14k to sky-kit who have apparently closed down and likely will never pay you a dime. How much was this R32 that you have now that might get crushed?

im in over $40k. thats why selling my r32 overseas would be fruitless. i might as well find a place to put it for a while and import it back to have something to show for my $40k. We are working with skykit now, will probably get it back, just might take a while.

Sucks dude, but this is exactly why I've always been against importing one without NHTSA certification.

Anyway, as far as importing it into non-NAFTA countries...

I know that in the UK, you can import pretty much anything so long as it passes MOT inspection. MOT is basically a safety inspection, making sure your car is safe to drive. Typical things like working wipers, lights, good tires, etc.

I believe that also, if you import the car into the UK, you MUST register it for road use. I'm sure you could import it as a racecar, but let's face it, it's not, and would probably be a bigger hassle than just registering the car for street use anyway.

I'm not 100% sure on the laws for Caribbean nations, but I believe most follow similar laws as the UK does. Bahamas is actually probably one of the better ideas anyway. Plus it's closer, so you'll probably save on shipping.

I've got a car friend (even a Nissan guy!) who is an American citizen, but Bahamian resident. IM me and I'll give you his contact info and maybe he can help. I'd post it in here but I don't know he'd want the whole world to know him LOL.

I've got another friend who lives in the UK who might also have some connections to storage facilities, and definitely knows the importing laws inside and out there (he used to work for a repair shop that does importing).

Plug into the Army and Air Force guys. Many deploy to Europe and can sometimes ship cars on the military's dime. A car like this would be appealing to them.

i live on a carribean island called curacao

and as someone said before we can import almost anything here so far.

i was gonna say that depending on how much you were selling it that i may be able to find you a sale here,

but not for $40k+

so, best of luck with your situation

EZcheese15 wrote:Sucks dude, but this is exactly why I've always been against importing one without NHTSA certification.

Anyway, as far as importing it into non-NAFTA countries...

I know that in the UK, you can import pretty much anything so long as it passes MOT inspection. MOT is basically a safety inspection, making sure your car is safe to drive. Typical things like working wipers, lights, good tires, etc.

I believe that also, if you import the car into the UK, you MUST register it for road use. I'm sure you could import it as a racecar, but let's face it, it's not, and would probably be a bigger hassle than just registering the car for street use anyway.

I'm not 100% sure on the laws for Caribbean nations, but I believe most follow similar laws as the UK does. Bahamas is actually probably one of the better ideas anyway. Plus it's closer, so you'll probably save on shipping.

I've got a car friend (even a Nissan guy!) who is an American citizen, but Bahamian resident. IM me and I'll give you his contact info and maybe he can help. I'd post it in here but I don't know he'd want the whole world to know him LOL.

I've got another friend who lives in the UK who might also have some connections to storage facilities, and definitely knows the importing laws inside and out there (he used to work for a repair shop that does importing).

I emailed you on your profile email address. Thanks for the advice!

MoogLe wrote:i live on a carribean island called curacao

and as someone said before we can import almost anything here so far.

i was gonna say that depending on how much you were selling it that i may be able to find you a sale here,

but not for $40k+

so, best of luck with your situation

Well i am $40k into both gtr's where the first one i never even got the car. I paid $26k for this one. Are there any storage facilities there? how affordable is it?

thomas , i am sorry for ur loss, but my friend he has an r33 early version (no air bags, reinforcement)SKYLINE, and he is freakin out, now he is lookin over his shoulders...like an illegal imigrant...but he has a registration and a tag, is he illegal?......

No...

Well Depends? Motorex Car?

Dittoz7 wrote:No...

Well Depends? Motorex Car?

according to DOT, and this is from the horses mouth, only 96-98(forgot what months) are "able to be converted by an RI upon import" to be legal. Otherwise i dont think there is any other way to get it in legally unless its imported temporarily for some significance, diplomat, some other reasons, but that is temporary.

Or it is a DOT bond released motorex car. I believe there were r32s and some r34s mixed in there, but dont know. All i know is that mine was illegally brought in apparently.

7 more cars seized on the East Coast according to my sources.

If I had a state legal car, I would be looking over my should right now.

Hate to tell you " I told you so , but I told you so".

http://gtrusa.blogspot.com/200....html

Lol, I can tell you what happened... the guy who was registers these cars in florida got busted and his in at the DMV got fired, and well they traced all the cars that had registered by that DMV person.

That blows man.

And not to be a d!ck, But doesn't Dept. of homeland security have bigger **** to worry about then a couple of car enthusiests? i mean ****ing christ. it's been how long since we started looking for Osama bin Laden but nooo luck finding that go so lets go over to the next biggest threat ILLEGAL NISSAN SKYLINES get a ****ing life. someone really needs to email some news channel (CNN/FOX/MSNBC) and see what they say on the subject.

Evo_bill wrote:Lol, I can tell you what happened... the guy who was registers these cars in florida got busted and his in at the DMV got fired, and well they traced all the cars that had registered by that DMV person.

Which register guy ? Someone that had some stuff to do with Evos ?

Guess this puts a little damper on some of the wannabe "importers" we've been punking lately, huh Sean?

Flicktitty wrote:That blows man.

And not to be a d!ck, But doesn't Dept. of homeland security have bigger **** to worry about then a couple of car enthusiests? i mean ****ing christ. it's been how long since we started looking for Osama bin Laden but nooo luck finding that go so lets go over to the next biggest threat ILLEGAL NISSAN SKYLINES get a ****ing life. someone really needs to email some news channel (CNN/FOX/MSNBC) and see what they say on the subject.

I cant say i dont agree with you. Most of us are average joes working our asses off, paying our taxes, etc. Why punish us? probably because we are an easy quota and easy targets. The middle class always gets f#$ked the hardest. I am an enthusiast, all i wanted was my damn gtr, i had it for a week, saved up for years, then taken away.Yes, they do have better things to do, but this seems like something to get thier moral up to make them feel more important i guess. Hell i dont know but we should be concentrating on drugs, machine guns, and illegal people. A car is just a car, hell it was practically just a paperweight in my garage, i drove it once before they took it.

Hey man,

Sorry about the bad news, have helped a couple GTR's go to the U.S. recently.

Anyway shoot me a email my friend in Japan can handle the car. He is an exporter himself but is more than happy to help.

email: skylinegtr20[@]hotmail.com

regards,

Sucks to be burned on the car. Out of interest, I noticed the blue plate on the firewall. Here in Australia we use blue plates to ID highly modified cars and grey imports. This car wouldn't have come from Australia by chance?

I know one was for sale from a dealership around here locally. Apparently it was "sold" recently?

Local thread talking about it, has link to car still on their website too.

http://www.mwir.net/forum/inde...yline

splitime wrote:I know one was for sale from a dealership around here locally. Apparently it was "sold" recently?

Local thread talking about it, has link to car still on their website too.

http://www.mwir.net/forum/inde...yline

When i saw this thread and pics of the car that was my first thought of the GT-R at the autobarn. but that had differant wheels and seats.

what should i tell my friend ?? should he be worry? hide his car? he is freaking out

that is fuk up for real, im really sorry for you loss. hope you can get it back.

Never thought I'd see the day. I'm sorry for your loss man. Hope things get worked out.

irsa76 wrote:Sucks to be burned on the car. Out of interest, I noticed the blue plate on the firewall. Here in Australia we use blue plates to ID highly modified cars and grey imports. This car wouldn't have come from Australia by chance?

Most all the cars that come from Japan have that blue ID tag. It's got the chassis code, engine code, engine displacement, paint code and something else, but I can't remember.

tyndago wrote:7 more cars seized on the East Coast according to my sources.

If I had a state legal car, I would be looking over my should right now.

Hate to tell you " I told you so , but I told you so".

http://gtrusa.blogspot.com/200....html

I wonder if that "Florida guy" might be our resident know-it-all-importer Celm? Wouldn't surprise me in the least if it was.