PJ Grady - 1.....Customs - 0

[Glen & Sam]

the club will see it soon on the stand at the nec

[Guinney1971]

heck, when you look at Darrens figures, it makes you realise that its not just as simple as a straight $2 = £1 exchange plus a "few quid" on top for shipping.

I've just gone through my file of paperwork from when I bought Flopsy to work out exactly what I paid in June 2002:

Purchase price of car £2872.46 ($4500 USD, exchange rate $1.56)
Shipping (via TGAL) to Tilbury (via Thamesport) to include collecting as a non runner and taking to Long Beach CA £879.00
WT Shipping/Devanning/Customs Clearance £299.50
VAT £158.20 (BTI 9705)
Admin Fee £5.00

So, total, to my door was £4214.16, so shipping and duties were 32% of the total cost. And then, in 2003 when I came to register her, I had to pay £90.75 for 6mths Tax and £25 first registration fee - which as Darren pointed out is now £99 and £50

[Jonny Jones]

MikeH Wrote:i know what my dream car is, lol

Lined hood, no gas flap, grey manual, power aerial

Dito.

And I completely forgot about all the shipping charges, VAT etc etc. Ive given myself a target of saving up £20k - purely so that the car I get is absolutely mint, and also I personally feel having a few K spare is decent leway for getting any repairs done, tyres etc, and insurance, tax and MOT fees etc - not sure what you think about that Darren/Claire/any other owners?

[PJ Grady (Europe)]

Send me the money Mr Jones - and I'll give my honest opinion!

£20k is more than enough. The trick is to buy cheap in the US, pay very little on import taxes - and get the car upto mint over here.

One of the cars recently sold was purchased for $5,000 - so shipping was peanuts - then all of the extra money to make it a £17k car was spent over here in parts and labour.

All I was trying to illustrate is that what looks like a cheap deal from the US carries a whole host of little hidden charges.

Darren

[Barson]

damn

where do you find those cheap cars :/


take it it's not as easy as ebay.

[PJ Grady (Europe)]

Crikey,

Lots to do on Pilot 20 before she is ready for show - but the car does look pretty good - and it is a true original.
So many of the parts on the car are completely hand made - Chris was trying to remove the right front fender - and it's completely different from stock. The metal seems thinner - and there are screws holding it in place in the most unusual areas.

Here's a few initial photos taken last night (of the workshop and the car)...

http://www.pjgrady.co.uk//GenericConten ... mises.html

Darren

[Barson]

nice.

how are you going to approach removing the paint ?


also I notice it's got the later version of the water pump hose routing - was that done by the last owner?

EDIT: nice shop. :wink:

[Barson]

huh.

are those wheels grey or silver - they don't look either. :?

[PJ Grady (Europe)]

Hi Barson,

The wheels look to be silver - but the paint is starting to let go. This will be redone at some point.

The engine bay as you see it is how it arrived - the air hose routing looks to have been that way for a while - probably before Sascha aquired the car. Luckily Sasha did a great job in keeping everything that he removed from the car - so we have a pile of original parts to fix/source and replace. The original header bottle was from a Ford!

We need to take the panels off before we work out what to do with the paint - we could acid dip the panels - or we could remove by hand (but depends if there are any markings/signatures on the underside.

The panels look to be semi-handmade - with the core shape being pressed out - but all of the mounting points, etc done by hand.

The car also needs a trip to the trimmer to have some of the original trim refreshed - this will be done by Nick Fulcher - who worked on the pilot cars initially when they were at Lotus.

Darren