Any importers out there willing to sell a jdm vehicle to a US resident?

[Sastrad]

I was under the impression that the vehicle must be 25 years old to be exempt from US compliance requirements, and pre-import to Canada in this sense does not make any difference because it does not make the vehicle "Canadian and therefore built to comply with US regulations".

Am I missing something?

I am going to throw something in here that may add to the confusion;

http://www.cbp.gov/trade/basic-impor.../importing-car

There is a link to A List of Nonconforming Motor Vehicles that are Eligible for Importation (By or Through a Registered Importer may be obtained from a RI or from NHTSA's website, about more than half way down the page. This link is a pdf that lists eligible vehicles.

The list mentions Canadian vehicles' age and their conforming to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). This list does not include vehicles imported from Japan unless those vehicles conform to Canadian Standards. However, there is a list of vehicles at the end of this document that includes a Nissan Skyline. I will let others read this to hear what they think of it.

[Qsecofr]

My guess is - Skyline is there due to a clerical mistake.

Also, in general when importing to US from Canada, general rules are for vehicles originally built to conform with CMVSS. However, our 15-year-old cars are never declared to conform with CMVSS, they are imported as exempt, so my view is they never become CMVSS compliant for the purpose of reexport to the US (or for any other purpose).

[SilverStar]

Actually 96-99 R33's are "legal" to import to the US. Motorex completed the crash test requirements before they went out of business.

[jdmvip]

I think we've talked about this before, yes that list is correct but there are steps to get them legalized through EPA and some other chassis modifications from what I hear. There's a lot of mystery and confusion about those processes and what makes a car semi-legal or State Legal (but leaves you wide open to the DOT seizing the car) and a million other questions I hope will get answered.

The path to 25 year old vehicles is not entirely clear to many like rpk2012 who's having issues with the basics of clearing the car and getting access to it (not nearly as simple as Canada is).

[RyanV]

The path to 25 year old vehicles is not entirely clear to many like rpk2012 who's having issues with the basics of clearing the car and getting access to it (not nearly as simple as Canada is).

For any US residents in the Pacific Northwest it seems like it would be easier to have their 25 year old car sent to Canada, pick it up an Vancouver and then drive it home.

[ixelerate]

To address a couple of questions in this thread:

The "list" mentioned above has cars that have been petitioned by an RI (Registered Importer) to be eligible for importation by stating that they are extremely similar to a US DOT comparable car. There are also cars that have been crash tested and approved for importation such as the Nissan Skyline. If you were to import a car on this list that is not yet 25yrs old you would need to have it modified by an RI to meet the modifications listed inside the docket pertaining to each car on that list. You would also need to meet emissions if the car is not 21 years old either. This is extremely expensive and time consuming. The Nissan Skyline is not on there due to a clerical error. A company called Motorex payed for the crash testing around 1999 to get the car legal in the USA. The company imported 120 Skylines until they were shut down by feds for a host of violations. Originally all R32-R34 Skylines were eligible for importation due to their similarities, but after the Motorex fiasco the feds rescinded it to only the '96-98 models with I believe dual airbags. You can still import these cars and use JK technologies as your RI to do the correct modifications, but will cost you $36,000 USD + car + shipping. Up until last year that had been no Skylines imported since Motorex. However, Sean Morris who was involved early on with Motorex has his own company now called "International Vehicle Importers" and is now importing Skylines under the "Show or Display" law with the NHTSA. He has been allowed to import any of the 560 Nismo special editions in 1990. The first GTR skylines in 1989 weren't manufactured until August of that year so they won't be eligible for a few months. There are a lot of state legal Skylines in Florida due to the Florida DMV willing to title anything. To make a long story short, it will be way easier to import under the 25+ law, and even that as I have come to find out isn't easy either. I am in the process now of talking with Sastrad in hopes of importing my first car.

[ixelerate]

For any US residents in the Pacific Northwest it seems like it would be easier to have their 25 year old car sent to Canada, pick it up an Vancouver and then drive it home.

Not really, because you would be paying double the taxes.