Hi folks. Well I very rarely post on here, although i do visit every day I live in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, and I just thought I'd share my experience I've had buying a hotrod from the USA. Let me start at the beginning...... I bought a 32 Roadster in May last year almost on the spur of the moment, without really thinking things through. First of all, a roadster and Scottish weather DO NOT MIX! Plus I viewed the car on my own and I was seduced by the sound of a hot 355ci V8. I got the car home and it needed loads doing. The body was fibregl*** and was quite flimsy, and some of the mechanicals were of questionable build quality. After a couple of months I sold it on, and sat myself down to decide what I really wanted. It didn't take long... I wanted a chopped and channelled, fenderless, grounds****ing steel coupe with a monster V8. I couldn't find anything over here in the UK, so one of my friends suggested buying a car from the US and shipping it over. So 14 weeks ago I spotted my dream car in the HAMB Cl***ifieds....a genuine steel 1929 Ford Model A Coupe belonging to NumbNutz. Over 50 emails, a few international late night phone calls and about 120 pictures later...I had struck a deal. I sold one of my kidneys, sold one of the kids and sold my soul to the devil (eBay is great eh) And 11 weeks ago on the 29th October, I took the biggest gamble of my life and sent a strange man with a beard from Arizona my entire life savings. I've been ill since that day and had dozens of sleepless nights worrying of what actually might turn up. Well on Tuesday night on the 11th January at 9.45pm it arrived... and it is a thousand times better than I ever dreamed it would be I have to say that Allan (NumbNutz) was superb from start to finish, and I couldn't have asked for a better person to deal with. The pictures are such a contrast, from Allan loading it onto the transporter in 90 degree heat, to the car in my garage with daytime temperatures showing 1 degree. The poor car doesn't know what's the hell's happened!!! http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24424&id=100001637796589&l=0cbd7d4e11 Cheers Mark
"and it is a thousand times better than I ever dreamed it would be" - the best part, congrats! edit: They have big Ford pickups with smoke stacks in Scotland? Who knew? That thing must chew through some pricey fuel.
Mark, Congrats on your Hot Rod acquisition. Have lots of fun with it. Try to get some pix of your new rod posted. Dave
I know the car...which is very cool!! and I met Allan just a couple of weeks ago. He seemed like a cool guy, enjoy the car!
Scotland is not without its rodders. About 15 years ago i got a visit here from a trombome player in the Glascow symphony (Chris Stearns). I had helped him fix his Jensen which is a British car with basically Road Runner drive train. He was visiting Canada for a concert and rented a Motorhome (AKA Caravan) and drove here with no direction other than my village's name to bring me a bottle of scotch in appreciation for my help. Since I dont drink alky (Alky is for racing) I have kept it stored lest I get bitten by a snake or something. Still have it. I wish you all the very best with your project. It looks very very cool. Don
Love that Hemi! Know what you mean about the weather here.I take it you'll be fitting a heater then! Maybe bump into you some time. Mark.
I used Kingstown Shipping who charged me $1990 plus $485 to collect the car from Allan and deliver it to Long Beach. I then paid www.auto-haul.co.uk $750 to collect the car from Felixstowe port and deliver it to me in Edinburgh which is 415 miles.
Thanks for all the positive comments guys. I'm just waiting on the good weather to arrive so I can terrorise the neighbourhood
congratulations on the car, you chose a nice one. but it look so odd in rainy england. Could you possibly explain a bit about the inbetween bits of the process. the paper work, I just looked at the shipping website, it says A vehicle cannot generally be exported from the USA without the original Certificate of ***le. US Customs & Border Control will require it for export clearance so it is important that it isn't sent over to the UK before the vehicle ships. All of our US shippers advise arrangements for the ***le paperwork from your seller. so do they just collect that from the seller and deal with all that for you? and I'm keen on importing a vehicle but I'm unclear of HM Customs & Excise rulings and import taxes how do you deal with paying this customs charge?
Ok, first of all its not England...its Scotland! lol Right, seriously. If you do everything yourself then yes, you would need to know everything about paperwork and fees, taxes etc... However, Kingstown did everything for me from start to finish. All I did was tell them I'd wired the money to the seller, and they arranged to collect the car from Arizona, take it to Long Beach in LA, ship it over to Felixstowe and paid everything in between. I preferred to get enclosed transport home so I arranged the last part myself, otherwise it would have been a door to door service. They told me to instruct the seller to send the original ***le and Bill of Sale directly to the agent at Los Angeles, which he did using secure overnight courier. The Bill of Sale is just a word do***ent that the seller printed off and signed with the purchase price on it. When it reached the UK Kingstown paid the customs and VAT for me, then I paid them back before I got the car. I got a C384 form to fill in when the car arrived and send back to Kingstown. That was it. I would do it all over again no problem! Cheers Mark
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