Just wondering if anyone has ever brought a car back from Mexico? When I was down there last year I saw a lot of old American Iron, lot of it still running, some of it not. Some that come to mind. 46-48 2 door Pontiac fastback (was in an amu*****t park, not running or driveable), a 54 Chevy Bel Air 2 dr, running and driven regularly, and a lot of old Falcons driving and not. One neat thing when I was down there was that if your starter or alt. takes a dump they can rebuild them. You just go downtown and they rebuild them there, seems almost a lost art form around in the States, we would just throw it away and buy another. A friend said his uncle used to pick up cars cheap or free up here fix them and take them down there to sell. He would take about 6-12 cars a year. He was able to build his house in Santa Rosa with cash. He stopped when they started requiring a $1000 deposit per car. You would get the money back when you brought back all the cars you came in with. Anyway, has anyone done this or tried? I am sure it would be a pain in the *** but just curious?
Man that's good question I never thought of askin HAMBers. Last time I was at the Guadalajara airport I saw a 46 chevy fleetline taxi. It had to of been a seventies lowrider cuz it had True-Spokes and metalflake panels everywhere. The taxsista didn't even know how rad that car was. I would also like to know if anybody ever brought any of it back. There is vintage tin all over mexico and most people will more than likely give it up easily.
I'm not certain but I don't think you can import cars from Mexico. I have a friend who has been tring to get bugs from there and said that you can't do it. On the way to Rocky Point which is a popular place for Arizonians to go there is a shoebox that looks like it was customized in the 50's and a tri-five wagon just sitting on the side of the road. I think if it was easy or possible to get cars from there, someone would have nabbed those by now. Also, I still get my starters and generators rebuilt, I thought everybody did.
Okay, I did some checking. Go to www.buycl***iccars.com and there is some good information (as long as the car is 25 years or older it seems easy enough) + there is a link for U.S.customs. Click onto that & then at the U.S. Customs screen,top right, type in; importing a car from mexico.It will take you to a search page where you can click onto that heading - but - you need to have Microsoft Word in order to get to it & my machine does not - so - that is as far as I could go. Maybe someone else can take this further. Gary 4T950 Chevy Guy
Bugs (Beetles) are a special case because they made them in Mexico until a few years ago, and they don't meet US emissions or safety regs. The Customs folks got tired of trying to figure out whether they were legal or not and stopped it altogether.
I've spoken to a Mexican cl***ic car broker, and he has connections to check and make sure the cars weren't stolen at one point. He says those never go off the books once reported stolen, so you could lose your investment as soon as you bring it back. It would be a really good idea to have a connection to make sure the cars are totally clean before even giving anyone money. Food for thought. This is the main reason I haven't tried bringing back bunches of cars to sell here in SoCal... I don't want that kind of trouble.
Yup. 79 and older bug can still easily be imported. Actually, the 80 and newers can be imported just fine too, but they can't be liscensed or used on public roads(the previously mentioned safety and emissions). The way around this was to buy rusted out american Bugs and swap out all the old parts for the new. Basically you end up with a new car with an old vin and ***le.
I forgot to mention some of the nice restored/modified cars I had seen that would like right at home here. Most of these were in Guadalajara. -56 Ford Crown Vic, restored to perfection, cruising on the freeway around the airport with some older dudes dressed fairly nice/respectable like -57 Chevy in dark candy blue, torque thrust wheels, nice rake. -a restored Model T Touring in a showroom at a bodyshop. So how about it, anyone got a semi with a car trailer, fit about 10 cars on it, wanna make a road trip?
Seriously I am just kidding about the road trip. I get tired just thinking about our trip to Santa Cruz tomorrow. And I am really not a fan of driving to LA from Nor Cal so I can't imagine driving to Central Mexico. I guess when I think about it it wouldn't be much different than driving to the East coast. Did that once. Need a good reason to do it again one day, just need to plan it and I would get excited about it. But otherwise, that drive would be hell.
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