Bringing a car to the UK from the US

Hi

Has anyone any experiences of bringing a car from the US to the UK, what do you need to do when you get it there etc

Thanks in advance

Hi Broma,

Have a look through this site using the search function, theres a few threads in which I've posted about bringing a car/vehicle over from the US.

We imported a 2003 F150 Harley Davidson Anniversary Edition truck in 2004, it was relatively easy to do - get the paperwork done, organise shipping and then the landed fees and duties and testing and after that pretty much your on the road!

Some initial things to think about - it really only makes sense to bring over an 'interesting' American car. If your car is a normal 'bread and butter' type, I'd say don't bother, the transport and import duties payable upon landing it here probably wouldn't make it a financially viable option. That said, I don't know how fat your wallet is!

There are some sites which explain the whole process in detail including some of the possible exemptions (of VAT etc) and things to watch out for.

Cheers! DtM! West London & Slough UK!

Thanks for that Dennis

We have a 2004 Mustang which my husband just cannot live without....lol

A fat wallet though we do not have!!!

Broma

Hiya

there's quite a few of those Mustangs around and start from around £12000 for a 2004 coupe type. have a look at www.autotrader.co.uk for local UK pricing on Mustangs.

I found a site here which uses good plain english to cover all aspects - the good news is that according to this (and if it's up to date with legislation) you might get away with paying VAT and the Import duty - so long as you can prove you've owned the car for at least 6months prior and dont sell it here within a year.

http://www.import-car.info/

To ship the F150, I seem to recall around £1250 +VAT - but made the mistake of using an 'open type' delivery container - so it arrived very very very filthy. We were also told it was extremely lucky it hadn't picked up some minor scrapes and damage! we were then told to always use a 'closed container' to ship - it costs more of course ! I can only imagine the price has risen since 2004 (upon landing - we had to pay the VAT and Import duty and that added a substantial amount to the pricing of the truck at the time!) so I'd estimate for a closed container it'd be around the £1500-1600 mark (around $3000-3200 range) if you can find a US agent cheaper then great. Bear in mind you may have to get the car to the shipping port location, I cant remember if the shipping quote would include that or not.
Once here, you'll need it SVA tested and modified mechanically to be UK road legal. I'd budget around £250-350 for the SVA test and maybe £250-500 ish on getting it road legal.
Have a look through that site and it should answer all your queries - and let us know if you do go ahead with it !

Cheers! DtM! West London & Slough UK!