I probably shouldn’t tempt fate. But so far the experience of buying a car in the USA, from Australia has been straight forward.
Although, I haven’t actually seen the car yet, and when it was delivered to the port in San Fransisco, I was told the export paperwork wasn’t in place…a few phone calls at 4am Sydney time seemed to resolve the issue. Hell, the car isn’t even on the boat yet..but i’m confident it will make it, and when it does, im hoping the tanker doesn’t sink as I scrimped on the $700 transit insurance.
As I’ve not seen the car I am still blissfully unaware of all those little surprises you get when you take a punt and buy a car unseen, on the other side of the world. But this isn’t our first rodeo. We are becoming somewhat adept at buying things without seeing them. We have previously bought and restored a 1973 VW Camper van after a 5 min walk around with zero car repair know how. We also picked up a 42ft yacht in Barcelona without seeing her. We did get her surveyed and sent my dad out to look her over. But we hadn’t seen her until we flew to Barcelona to pick up the keys….so you could say our purchasing risk appetite is reasonably high. We also do lots of research….and enjoy a project.
Buying sight unseen isn’t for everyone. I have friends who will set up the most incredibly complex spreadsheets and spend months debating which mobile phone plan to get. We have met scores of arm chair sailors who are waiting for the “right boat”. The right boat tends to be one that is fully loaded and they can simply step on and leave the dock, sail the world and then sell said yacht for a profit and recoup their costs…I’ve found these people tend to remain safely in their arm chairs, looking at the dock….shaking their heads at people like us who are prepared to take a risk or two.
So what do you need to export from the USA and import to Australia:
[USA] Bill of Sale:
Essentially documentation proving you have purchased the car.
[USA] Registration transfer/Reassignment documents:
USA vehicle reassignment document
[AUS] Vehicle Import approval.
There are a number of government options for importing a vehicle into Australia. With a historic car, like the Porsche 912E, the easiest way is to import under the pre 1989 scheme. Refer to the link below.
https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/vehicles/imports/import_options/pre1989scheme.aspx
As a private importer you have to first register yourself and then up load the relevant documents including Bill of Sale, recent car photos, VIN & Vehicle details, Photo ID etc. Once uploaded it takes 20 days to get an import approval. Im not sure what happens if the car is enroute and you are denied an import licence, and I’m hoping not to find out.
Restoring a Porsche 912E 