Since, the US Dollar is taking a beating, and one Euro is worth $1.50 US, is this the best time EVER to sell your Hotrod to someone overseas? The way I look at it, My 31 Model A Coupe is worth about $15K US thus only costing 10,000 Euro’s. Are you guys in Europe drooling over the US cars?
I can only imagine shipping containers are filling up as I write this. Great from the aspect that hotrodding/American tin becomes more affordable and attainable to the rest of the world. Gotta be a good thing I reckon.
My mother and her man just Ebayed a 53 Packard Convertible this week. The leading bidder got sniped with 4 seconds to go from a guy in Europe. I was concerned until I took a look at his recent purchases, all reasonable $$ and all said he had great payment speed. I guess we'll see. The other thing to think about is that a container that costs $5k for us to ship, is only like E3K for the guys over there. You can stuff a ton of **** in a container. My problem is, I ship stuff FROM Europe to Canada and into the US. I'm getting KILLED on exchange. My stuff from Brazil doesn't even come here anymore. My guys down there tell me it is cheaper to fly to Disney for vacation than it is to stay in Brazil! Now I know what its like to be a low cost country...
Yeah the dollar ain't **** no more!! I think we're all going down. So since we're all gonna be broke soon, who wants to sell a solid 30-31 coupe body for grocery money to feed the family?
Well yes good exchange rate for us to purchase cars and parts from there but it's getting hard to sell our expensive euro-based merchandise overseas...
And when we get those hotrods to New Zealand. We have to run them on gas that costs $1.80NZ a Ltr. Do the math. Approx $5.60NZ a gallon. Cool huh?
YES - it's been good buying for a while now, but every bit further the US$ drops the cheaper cars and parts get for o/seas buyers. And remember in many cases, you are competing with cars built in those other countries using parts imported at MUCH higher exchange rates. In addition, for traditional style cars and parts, the supply of old parts is much more plentiful in the US anyway. It's getting very hard to buy old parts in NZ - any good parts are simply held onto.
I think there was quite a long-running thread about this quite recently. The weak dollar certainly does make it easier on the pocket to buy a car from the US rather than try and build it at home, the UK in my case, but that isn't the whole story. Your cars and parts are cheaper PERIOD. Therefore, even before the exchange rate is brought into it, our money goes further than when we try to buy at home. You have access to more tin and a higher availability of desirable parts than we do, this means that everything over here is expensive to begin with.
Artiki pretty much summed it up - whlst stuff does come up for sale here you're much more likely to find what you want in the states, and it'll be cheaper. Most of the part resellers here work £ for $ to cover their costs, that mounts up real quick when you buy alot of stuff..
At my first trip to the U S I paid 5.50 to the dollar 1990. Then I went on a trip in 2000 and paid close to 12 to a dollar. Today it's 6,20 to the dollar. Swedish currency that is. Wish I could afford to get me a schaweet ride.
No cars yet but I've been selling tons of parts to foreign guys. Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Germany and the UK mostly. It's great that they appreciate old American cars so much and it makes me money too.
I think you inverted the converter: <table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" width="100%"><tbody><tr align="center"><td cl***="yfnc_tablehead1">Symbol</td><td cl***="yfnc_tablehead1">New Zealand Dollar</td><td cl***="yfnc_tablehead1" colspan="2">Exchange Rate</td><td cl***="yfnc_tablehead1">U.S. Dollar</td><td cl***="yfnc_tablehead1">Bid</td><td cl***="yfnc_tablehead1">Ask</td></tr><tr align="center"><td cl***="yfnc_tabledata1">NZDUSD=X</td><td cl***="yfnc_tabledata1">5.6</td><td cl***="yfnc_tabledata1">Mar 1</td><td cl***="yfnc_tabledata1">0.7991</td><td cl***="yfnc_tabledata1">4.4750</td><td cl***="yfnc_tabledata1">0.7991</td><td cl***="yfnc_tabledata1">0.7996</td></tr></tbody></table> Gas was $3.05 US at the highway 20 minutes ago. It is a difference, I will admit, but wouldn't you pay more to be drive that iron? I would.
Hell yes, hence why expensive petrol doesn't put us off. Now if your government would only release those scientists who have discovered how to make flathead V8's run on water...
what a deal for those guys! just make sure you insure the hell out of those containers full of good ole' u.s. iron. they sometimes come loose in bad weather and end up being fish reefs. seems to happen when alaska bound ones are overloaded with machine parts.
And you guys got all the cool two door stuff we didnt, now we can buy and import a two door for the price of a local 4 door! Now if you I could just find some money for that 49 Tudor I always wanted.
The way it sounds at first glance is your getting a rod half price!No wonder we are all having a feeding frenzy!!With all the hidden cost you could not put a car together over here for the price of a finished car,and most times,they come over with all the vintage bits that a lot of guys out there think is junk,HELLO!How the hell did we end up with the Hamberis and Mitchell g***er?Don.t make no sense to me,now I need a nice little lottery win,oh yeh and a divorce.
.... not until YOUR scientist release those women who dig cars, don't talk and have house keeping as a hobby! STALEMATE BABY! Looks like the new cold war has started up!
yup there are container loads of stuff headed here, more then ever before, with the ease of buying and shipping and the low USD, mosly its 50-60's stuff but there will be more early stuff on the way about now too, could be the time to buy back those steel bodied 32's that all went to the US when our dollar was ****. What I keep looking at is there is only a small market for a whole lot of these cars here and with interest rates going up etc here the pool will be getting shallower all the time, keep your eyes peeeled for some good deals. Look on the positive side when things return to normal (or worse) for us it will start making sense for cars to be sold from here back to the US.....
if importing trucks into the uk it best to buy pre 1950 as you only pay 5% import duty,post 1950 you pay 17%tax then 22%duty on everthing which makes a m***ive differance,not sure what the rates is for cars(10%???) i just had a quote for a 36 ford pu that was $8500 to buy would be at my door for £6495,and another for a 51 ford pu at $8000 would be £8053,you proberly wouldent make on the 51 if you were to try and sell it here but had it been a 48/49 to the same speck there was an easy £1000 profit,,havin said that its still a good time to buy
The Jalopy Journal
