Foreign Cars in the US

[Winger98]

I was wondering if anyone had experience with this. The Wife and I watch Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and we just watched the episode with Melissa Villaseñor and the Nissan Figaro, and we really liked the quirky little weirdness of that car. But we were wondering if there was anything special that had to be done to make it street legal in the US.

Anyone have any experience with bringing foreign cars from over seas and getting them okayed here in the states?

Click to read more...

 

[Tasteless Beaver]

Look up the 25-year rule. There is an import process for cars that are older than 25 years, that were previously inadmissible. That's why the US is seeing a lot of 1989-1994 RHD cars coming in lately.

 

[ShelbyZ]

I was wondering if anyone had experience with this. The Wife and I watch Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and we just watched the episode with Melissa Villaseñor and the Nissan Figaro, and we really liked the quirky little weirdness of that car. But we were wondering if there was anything special that had to be done to make it street legal in the US.

Anyone have any experience with bringing foreign cars from over seas and getting them okayed here in the states?

As @20 others said, once a car hits 25 years old, it's exempt from needing to meet US safety regulations.

I don't have experience bringing them over, but I know that you really don't have to worry about bringing them in now, especially something like a Figaro. You can easily get one in the US now. Once the oldest R32 Nissan Skyline hit 25 years old there was a huge boom in US based dealers that specialize in stocking and selling popular and quirky JDM cars that are popular with a generation of people who grew up playing Gran Turismo games. These places import these cars in by the boatloads, take care of all the customs and title stuff to make them able to be registered in all 50 states, then basically operate like a used car dealer. You can go there and test drive one, then pay and get it plated and everything. Some even offer financing...

There's a huge place in VA that stocks tons of these cars called Duncan Imports and Classics. A quick check of their site and it looks like they've got over 100 Figaro's in stock in various conditions and ranging from around $6k all the way up $40k.
Japanese Domestic Right-Hand-Drive Vehicles | Daihatsu & Suzuki Sales

There's a cool guy on Youtube that has a series of videos dedicated to his Figaro (which I'm pretty sure was sourced at Duncan):


He also has an AutoZam AZ1, and in the first video for that project, he highlights his experience buying it at Duncan:

 

[Winger98]

thanks for the links/youtubes and getting me pointed in the right direction. Gives me an excuse to go back to Virginia (vacationed there a few weeks ago, if only...) and test drive. Really not sure if I could be comfortable with the right side driving. I'll see if there is a similar place a bit closer. Really like some of the quirky vans from that Duncan site.

I never played a Grand Turismo but I owned an old 87 Z, and that got me into the Z/skyline cars for awhile. Would like to go back but family/responsibilities/etc.

 

[Roboturner913]

The funnest thing about driving a RHD car is rolling through the Taco Bell drive-thru backwards