Triumphrat

daveforty · 12-24-2006

I have been looking at the prices of 'classic' bikes for sale in the US. Not only do seventies era bikes seem to be less valued over there, the current exchange rate prices them about half what they might be priced over here. Which gives me ideas...

a proper Rocket 3 Suitably tidied up, that would be a £4500 bike over here.

I made some enquiries and was quoted $2800 (£1450) to ship a bike from the US to the UK, which strikes me as a bit steep. Anyone here ever tried importing a bike from the US? can it be done cheaper, the quoted price would make it un-economical.

I spoke to the DVLA and registering it wouldn't be a problem, get an MOT based on the frame no, insurance and pay them a small fee (£38). Bikes of that era fall out of type approval requirements, and once it has an MOT it may not need an engineer's inspection.

Hints & tips gratefully received.

doodledog · 12-26-2006

Sounds feasable, maybe worth contacting general importers who bring in containers of stuff as part loads, Groupage importing is pretty common and you would probably only pay for the couple of meters of space required, lots of shipping agents about, contact them and find out. I worked on trucks doing delivery of groupage and have seen plenty of mixed loads, your guy at the other end would put it on a van, it would go to a hub to be loaded into an ISO container and then you could collect from their UK depot or they would deliver in their van, depending how much you want to spend.

I know there are groupage places at Tilbury and around that area.

[ This message was edited by: doodledog on 2006-12-26 15:40 ]

BWW · 12-27-2006

I'm doing the reverse trip in a year or so when I get married and move to the US. I spoke to the US customs about taking my T100 over and they pointed me here: Hope it helps.www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/import/

The lady in the US said not to accept the first quote I got because it's a highly competitive market and would get cheaper if I shopped around, the same is probably true of the reverse.

[ This message was edited by: BWW on 2006-12-27 04:05 ]

12-30-2006

Are there any taxes to pay on stuff like that? Nex 675's for example sell for about £5K in the US - so if one could be shipped for say £1k - that leaves you £1,200 in profit if there were no taxes. Not sure what the warranty position would be either. Of course, the more expensive the bike - the more sense it makes.

Martin

Triang · 01-12-2007

S'funny - a mate and me had the same idea - importinhg the same bike - a Genuine Beeza Rocket 3...

... Havn't started working out the logistics yet though.

e404pnf · 01-15-2007

Quote:

On 2006-12-30 16:27, NitroNorry wrote:
Are there any taxes to pay on stuff like that?

I'm afraid so. I'm not an expert by any stretch, but think you'd be liable for 17.5% tax. So using your example of a £5000 bike the tax would be £875, reducing your saving from £1200 to £325. With the issues over the warranty etc, personally I'm not sure if it would be worth the effort (for a new bike anyway)

More details at HM Revenue & Customs

Gav

03-09-2007

If anyone want's to know exactly how to do this PM me. I moved back from living in the US for eight years and bought my two GPZ900r's with me.

It's not difficult but there's a few things to be aware of.

Mat