Shipping a car to the US

Hello All - it's actually been a few years since I posted on here! I am American, and my British hubby is moving to the US with me next year. I apologize if this has been posted before, but - how can I ship a car to the US? I'm thinking maybe I could buy a Smart here for about £3000 and ship it over there. Any links would be greatly appreciated.

Why not buy the Smart car in the US when you arrive?

ah, I didn't know they were even available over there! now  to find out for how much...thank you!

Hm. I think it may still be cheaper to buy a used one here and have it shipped.

I thought there was some kind of rule in the US where you could not have a right hand drive car unless it was a vintage car (1970's or older, I don't know the exact year). You should probably look into that as well.

I think smart cars are available in the US but suppose there wasn't any smart cars...where  would you get parts and what about warranty?  Well besides getting it shipped from the UK, can't be cheap.

Heidi,

I don't think you can ship the car over because of the requirements for the cars. Example, conforming to US Federal Safety Standards.

If you ask the US Embassy they will put you right. Again the cost to bring it up to US requirements I think will make it impractical.

The Smart cars are not selling very well right now in the US. There use to be a waiting list for them but then the compeditors came out with cheaper and better cars.

If you could bring over a Mini. They keep there value very well over here.

You will not be able to easily register a car in the US unless it is 25 years old or you can prove it complies with US regulations.  I know that many cars are not the same when built for export so don't assume that the a car with the same model name will pass.  You should save the grief and not bring a car across.  That being said, I'm shipping my 30 year old Mini across next month when I move back. 

Hi there,
I just stumbled across this thread as it's been bumped up!

Heidi - your first point of call will be these guys

http://www.gnkauto.com/facilities.html

They do conversions for cars built outside the UK to be US road legal. They do have a Smart car program as well. I spoke to these guys some time back about certain cars and to just get some general information.

There is some slight incorrect information in the threads so far. The 25 years old rule is for cars that are right hand drive only. If you want to bring into the US a left hand drive car, then that age limit doesn't apply. Pmorita's car is 30 years old, so perhaps with some mechanical work and federalising etc will be able to 'relatively' easily, begin to enjoy the car in the US.

You'd also have to cover insurance, any US import taxes and duties on the car once it arrives in the US as well. Those charges will probably wipe out a majority of the savings of buying the car here in the UK.

No point in getting a MINI over in the USA either, it's already officially available there. Smart cars are also officially available as well.

The realistic reason to import a car into the US, is for special, high performance, 'relatively' high value and interesting cars only. And from what I've read of some of the guys who've brought in E34 BMW M5s, Porsche 911 GT2's etc is that it's quite expensive, and the M5 for instance would be at a purchase price of only about £500-8000. Add on perhaps £4-5000 for all the shipping taxes, customs, federalising and testing costs and that'd be a good indicator of the kinds of costs you'd be looking at for a personal import Smart Car.

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!