Can anyone give some advice re: the above title?
I know Julin is an expert in this area but have never spoken directly to him.
I have an ex surgical colleague in Australia who is keen to change his car soon to a prancing donkey or AM.
Luxury car tax is huge there. Is there an advantage to me buying one here he likes- keeping it for some time , the. Sending it over?
Can anyone advise on the most economical way- or if it makes sense to.
Could be a way I could try out some cars I want to and he could save money
Having 20 years experience in vehicle imports and having brought in about 200-300 from UK, Sth Africa, NZ, Japan and US - here are your options;
1. If your friend wants a NEW car he'll have to buy that prancing horse or AM from a local dealer for the exorbitant prices they charge
2. If he's happy with a NEAR new car he may wish to wait for impending legislation which - prima facie - will allow Australians to import one car every 2 years that needs to fit such prohibitive criteria as to really not be worth doing. In essence, it will have to be less than 9 months old from the date of purchase and less than about 300 miles on the clock. Such cars won't have depreciated sufficiently to warrant the exercise. (unless his interest is more in delivery speed or specification levels than price, but I sense this is not the case)
3. If he wants a USED car he'll have to stick to ferrari 360 (now easier to buy in Aus), or AM Vanquish (2000 - 2007) and DB7 (V12 models) under the SEVS / RAWS system. None of these cars are now worth importing to Aus, for 3 reasons - 1. Slight depreciation in the AUD relative to the GBP position from 4 years ago which saw a flood of imports 2. Hence greater supply in Aus to push prices down and 3. Prices are trending up for these cars...so importing just is not feasible. You have the time, the risk (is he happy to send hundreds of thousands of dollars off-shore...caveat emptor?), the regulatory hurdles (air con gas, AQIS steam clean, asbestos checks), the costs of compliance (leaving aside the fact that the car gets butchered when this happens)
4. He can do a personal import but there are incredibly strict criteria for this. The person importing the car needs to have shown continual ownership for 12 months, have had residency status overseas, be moving to Aus permanently (yadda yadda). This takes extreme planning - and presuming your mate wont be doing this - he can finance someone else to, but they'll want a clip for their efforts, which reduces any cost savings. Again, Ferraris and AM have pushed north in the UK, and the arbitrage is less than it used to be. Unless you consciously bought a CAT D (but that would be a bit of a 'dog act').
5. As others have commented - imported models fetch less on the local markets TO A POINT. I have two locally delivered Spyders which cant seem to sell compared to imported coupes, merely for a 10% differential. Whilst common sense and history dictate that a local car should get a higher resale - often you only need to be a $ cheaper to appeal to some dim-witted folk.
6. he can import it as a race car - presume he does not want to go there
7. he can import a pre-89 model - they are probably cheaper here in Aus!
All in all - very limited prospects for doing this. For a surgeon (generally on $500K AUD and higher), I really hate to say this, but it seems strange that such a person would attempt to save $20-30K on a car, given the risks, issues and likely quality trade off. I hope he takes a different approach to the quality of his work (or does he or she do lips, t*ts and a**)?
PM me if I can provide more detail on anything - happy to help