Importing charges

[Martyn]

Now that we have lost the B.T.I on Deloreans coming into this country,What would be the rough total cost of importing including all taxes and other charges.I understand that if it comes from the East coast I.e New york it would be cheaper than getting one from California on the west coast.And also if the car is a runner and not a pusher it will be slightly cheaper.
Can anyone help?

[Guinney1971]

Speak to Darren and Chris at PJ Grady in Essex - they know the current rules probably better then anyone else at the moment

[Martyn]

Cheers Claire

[PJ Grady (Europe)]

Hello Martyn,

I can only comment on shipping from the East coast - as all of our cars come via PJ Grady Inc.

We get cheaper transportation rates through a shipping company as we ship quite a few cars through them - but expect around £1200 to £1500 for the shipping and port fees. Then, when the car gets here, you get hit for 17.5% of the value of the car AND the value of the shipping. Duty which would otherwise have been 10% gets waived as the car qualifies as a reimport and gets tax relief - so you only pay a £50 flat fee.
The only other costs you will bear are:
(a) the cost of local transport from the cars location to the port (maybe £200) or so.
(b) the cost of transporting the car from the port to your house (maybe another £200 or so). DO NOT even think about driving the car back yourself - the car will not be UK spec, won't be registered or taxed and any insurance you have will be invalidated and wouldn't pay out if you had an accident. We have trade plates and full insurance for doing this - and even then it's often safer to pay a transporter to collect.
© If your car is a non runner - it must have a working handbrake - as this would be a risk having it rolling around in a container. Some transporters may not care - but you'll pay more.
(d) Marine insurance if you want it - worth considering for a high end import - but realistically, I don't think the policy would ever pay enough to replace a Delorean.

I hope this is useful....I'll try and document the details fully for the club magazine at some point soon....

Darren

[bozzzydmc]

Hi Darren

That would be great, this question keeps being asked so much now a 'documented' answer would hlp no end .

[Reynolds]

I'm guessing the answer but I imported mine in 2005 and I had to pay the 10% import duty. At the time people were saying you can challenge this as it's a classic car (5% import duty). The customes people didnt really seem to know what to charge me and ended up saying the 10% was the fee. Can I appeal on this?

I paid a total of £750 to the shipping company to go pick the car up from Buffalo new york, sort the paperwork with the owner, transport it to New York docks and sail it to Southamptom. The tax was the big hitter, paying VAT on the import tax was just sickening...... and the government thought Delorean was a scammer, they need to look a bit closer to home (I'll get off my soap box now)

[Martyn]

Thanks very much for your help Darren.
And like Mike said it is a question that keeps coming up,and I think an answer would help everyone looking to get a car in the future.