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I want to bring a Lotus Exige over.

First you buy the car posing as a french collector, then you ship the car back to america federal express disguied as a load of cigarette cartons, then you take the VIN plates out and put them in a different vehichle. you take the other vehicle to the DMV and explain that "Lotus Exinge" is just a typo and the car is actually a 74 ford pinto. Take your new plates home. put the VIN plates BACK in the lotus and bingo! your done.


ok. I actually have no clue how to leagaly do something like this. The above is just how *I* would go about it.

umm, steve harris motors in salt lake just got 6 exige's in last week. their legal now.

You'd probably have to buy an Elise and swap VINs, keeping the Elise for offroad use only. Or good luck fiinding a trashed one to take the ID of. I thought they were going to sell a version here. The Europa, however, they're not. Dammit.

evolutionmovement wrote:I thought they were going to sell a version here.

I saw an ad for an Exige in the last issue of AutoWeek...

I thought they drove them in a recent issue. Must be thinking the Europa ... that's what I'd prefer, but an Elise will do.

It's a PITA!! You have to deal with customs, the DOT, the FDA, the CIA, MTV, PETA, KFC. Well I am right about the first two.

Best bet is to find someone in the USA that has brought them over already so they can pass along a bulk import discount.

It costs on the average $2K just to have a vehicle imported. There is a list of cars that the government will let you bring into the USA with little or no moddification needed.

Google is your friend.

azn2nr wrote:umm, steve harris motors in salt lake just got 6 exige's in last week. their legal now.

cough cough

http://www.ferrarinetwork.com/dispinv.p ... =New+Lotus

Each of those are listed as Elises

the orange one they have in the used section is there because it was traded in for an orange exige more likely than not the ones they just got in were already sold

http://166.70.25.159/car/exige/DSCF0005.JPG clicky for proofy

To legalize a car never intended for US shores, you need to do one of a few things.

1) Do it legally and import the car, have it modified to US saftey standards and present to the DOT a certification of crash saftey (usually means buying two of the said car, and having the DOT crash one for verification of it's ability to handle the impact). The company Motorex has most non-USDM exotic crash tests on record so you can use those as proof of crashworthiness.

2) You go to an importer and have it imported. Expect to pay more than triple the cost of the vehicle for this though. But it will be a FULLY street legal vehicle when you get it. Motorex still sells skylines in the 80k range.

3) Import the car, tell the DMV that the model was available to the USDM, and that it's the same. Sometimes you can get lucky, espically if you know a guy at the inspection station. I know a guy with a JDM Galant VR4 who did this. Just told the DMV that the Galant VR4 he has is the same as the USDM version. He chose not to tell them about the twin turbo V6 under hood, or the Right-Drive.

4) Import it, swap the VIN's and register it as an Elise. If it ever gets stolen, good luck.

The short of it, is that it'd cost you a testicle and your first born to get one "legally".

except for the fact that the exige is LEGAL

Exige is coming here, but I think Lotus is selling them as track only cars. Check Hunting Ridge Motors website. They are a Lotus dealer & do a lot of high end exotics. Make sure you fit in it before you get your hopes up. They aren't built for big Americans.

BAC5.2 wrote: 3) Import the car, tell the DMV that the model was available to the USDM, and that it's the same. Sometimes you can get lucky, espically if you know a guy at the inspection station. I know a guy with a JDM Galant VR4 who did this. Just told the DMV that the Galant VR4 he has is the same as the USDM version. He chose not to tell them about the twin turbo V6 under hood, or the Right-Drive.

4) Import it, swap the VIN's and register it as an Elise. If it ever gets stolen, good luck.

you'd have to smuggle it into the country in order to make those even an option. You have 10 days after arival at a port to bring EPA certification to customs. This info is on the US Customs website. EPA has a website also. If the vehicle's chassis was sold in the US then you can get around crash tests. This meaning since a JDM WRX is on the Impreza platform you don;t need to crash a WRX, the Impreza crash data can be used. This is the problem tha Motorex had. They had to crash a few of each chassis design Skyline before they could import them because Nissan never sold that chasis in the US.

As far as getting the vehicle titled, if you go through Florida it's pretty easy. Thier thieft recovery/reduilding system is pretty laxed. Basicaly they check nothing. That title is then transferable to other states. Be aware of this when buying a car in Florida. Most of them are fixed crashed and may not say so on the title. (This is why there are SO many luxury cars beeing sold on ebay from florida)

Anyway, that's my rant, I've looked into this it can be done, it's a lot of work. I will probably import a few key cars in the future. A JZA70, R34 Spec-V, and probably an RR Quattro Coupe.

BTW, I know of a few cars in the country that have been smuggled in and just have VIN swaps, it's shady and I don't condone it, but it can be done. Just don't live in an OBDII Inspection state or have an ECU ready to swap.

I'm Canadian, yo.

oh crap. so if your canadian it doesnt matter. you guys cant even get evo's legaly.

Sigh

Looks like I'll have to settle for an Elise

Since your Canadian ..........I think you can grow old waiting the 15 yr wait that I've heard Canada makes you you wait then supposedly you can bring it in.

azn2nr wrote:except for the fact that the exige is LEGAL

Only in the USA. Not in Canada, where he is located....

If you are going to get an overseas car, it can't be hard to smuggle it back.

A friend of mine, his dad was in the "car" business in the 70's.

He and some friends would go to Germany, buy US-Bound BMW's, bring them back to the states, and sell them for profit.

Eventually, it became more expensive to do this.

Sounds like gray market imports, which is different. But how hard would it be to just drive one over from the US. I could smuggle VX over the boarder without breaking a sweat, unless things have really changed in the last few years. They used to just ask a couple inane questions and send you away. Just get it over with some US plates and have a citizen drive it. Not that I condone that kind of thing or anythingm, I just WRITE about it.

The issue is getting it insured. They DO ask questions when the car has never been registered in the province before.

I think the best option is just getting an Elise with the track options. They're still hot as hell and handle like crazy.