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Ghost Dancer · 05-03-2006, 01:45 AM

True federalization of a Cefiro would represent an enourmous investment and not be worth the effort from a financial and logical standpoint. If someone was going to put up that kind of money and time why wouldn't they go for something more valuable like an R34 or perhaps a Chaser? The margins on a cheap, old, sedan are crap.

Cefiros are $500 cars here. Taking cost, shipping and other miscellaneous costs into consideration it will end up running you $2000-$3000 to get it into the US. Now since you say these are going to be "federalized" you will have to bring them in under Customs form HS-7 and EPA form 3520 which means the vehicle will have to be sent to an RI to be "modified" to meet the appropriate regulations. Depending on who you have do it you'll end up incurring more cost for the car than what you can sell it for. Of course I could be wrong. You may have an in at an RI that can do the work cheap.

So let's say you've got all that set up and you can get the car brought up to "spec" through the RI for cheap. A low ball estimate of cost in my mind is around 4k. Now if you can sell it for 8k that's a 4 thousand dollar profit. More than likely you're looking at 5-7k which drops that margin even lower. I don't see it worth the effort when you can "federalize" a number of other cars and end up with 15k-20k profits easily.

The only way I could see it being worth the effort of bringing a Cefiro in is to be sneaky about it. You can have the drivetrain yanked out of it in Japan and the motor and body shoved in a container and shipped to the US. Once it gets here there will be no HS-7 attached to the car. Just the EPA form for the motor. Once you pick it up you put it back together. Then you get it registered on a state level as a "kit car" or "assembled from parts". If you go this route there is a worthwhile margin as you didn't have to drop thousands and thousands to get an old, cheap, sedan "federalized" and you're only costs involve the vehicle itself, shipping, pulling/reinstalling the drivetrain, and the fees associated with deregistration/registration. Even if you could only sell it for 5k you would come close to doubling your money. Of course this way is not "federalized".

Of course I could be completely off base here.

05-03-2006, 01:45 AM	#28
Ghost Dancer Zilvia Junkie Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Japanland Posts: 314 Trader Rating: (0)	True federalization of a Cefiro would represent an enourmous investment and not be worth the effort from a financial and logical standpoint. If someone was going to put up that kind of money and time why wouldn't they go for something more valuable like an R34 or perhaps a Chaser? The margins on a cheap, old, sedan are crap. Cefiros are $500 cars here. Taking cost, shipping and other miscellaneous costs into consideration it will end up running you $2000-$3000 to get it into the US. Now since you say these are going to be "federalized" you will have to bring them in under Customs form HS-7 and EPA form 3520 which means the vehicle will have to be sent to an RI to be "modified" to meet the appropriate regulations. Depending on who you have do it you'll end up incurring more cost for the car than what you can sell it for. Of course I could be wrong. You may have an in at an RI that can do the work cheap. So let's say you've got all that set up and you can get the car brought up to "spec" through the RI for cheap. A low ball estimate of cost in my mind is around 4k. Now if you can sell it for 8k that's a 4 thousand dollar profit. More than likely you're looking at 5-7k which drops that margin even lower. I don't see it worth the effort when you can "federalize" a number of other cars and end up with 15k-20k profits easily. The only way I could see it being worth the effort of bringing a Cefiro in is to be sneaky about it. You can have the drivetrain yanked out of it in Japan and the motor and body shoved in a container and shipped to the US. Once it gets here there will be no HS-7 attached to the car. Just the EPA form for the motor. Once you pick it up you put it back together. Then you get it registered on a state level as a "kit car" or "assembled from parts". If you go this route there is a worthwhile margin as you didn't have to drop thousands and thousands to get an old, cheap, sedan "federalized" and you're only costs involve the vehicle itself, shipping, pulling/reinstalling the drivetrain, and the fees associated with deregistration/registration. Even if you could only sell it for 5k you would come close to doubling your money. Of course this way is not "federalized". Of course I could be completely off base here.