Jalopnik keeps reporting a bullE36 M3 story about a "legally" imported GTR.

http://kinja.roadandtrack.com/this-r32-nissan-gt-r-nismo-got-here-legally-first-1494171995

This is on the Road and Track Kinja but Jalopnik has reported on it once before then linked this article.

I am not a fan of gawker sites, they are sensationalist sites mostly and hop any on trend or fad and do a lot of mob rule style attacks on people and organizations without checking their facts, they are the internet's Daily Mail. Here is another example of their bullE36 M3.

Basically the claim is this guy had the following happen:

I went up one day to see the car, and drove it the hell off their lot and home to my house. They had to forfeit their import bond on it with NHTSA. I found out that they had declared it as a Canadian market car with their EPA customs declaration.

^ NOT LEGAL

In fact them reporting on this some internet reading customs bureaucrats can now go to his house and seize his car and destroy it like they did to so many R33s that were also imported ILLEGALLY.

The import people i'm using myself said after this article they got a ton of calls from people who think they can import their E36 M3 "legally" using illegal methods like having a JDM car being declared CDM and therefore DOT and NHTSA complaint and other such nonsense. You could have imported this car years ago having someone fabricate stuff like that for you.

On top of that lying on documentation like this that you submit to the government in a crime.

What about this is supposed to be legal? Nothing. Jalopnik gawkers it up again.

kanaric wrote: I am not a fan of gawker sites, they are sensationalist sites mostly and hop any on trend or fad and do a lot of mob rule style attacks on people and organizations without checking their facts, they are the internet's Daily Mail.

Everything you say is true, but my guilty pleasure is their sci-fi site io9. I actually love the biology coverage. Like all gawker sites, you need to fact check anything posted there, because the authors won't do so.

WRT jalopnik, I mostly stopped reading their stuff a few years back, and have said why multiple times:
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/other-good-auto-related-sites-to-read/64140/page2/
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/more-jalopnik-lameness/36222/page1/

I read them mostly for the videos. When it comes to their stories, I trust them but always verify the information.

You apparently didn't read that entire article. He ended up selling that car to someone that was supposed to export it, but they didn't. The car he "legally" imported is a car he brought over from Canada on 1/1 because Canada didn't specify it was an 8/1/89 date and just lists it as 1989 making it 25 years old.

moparman76_69 wrote: You apparently didn't read that entire article. He ended up selling that car to someone that was supposed to export it, but they didn't. The car he "legally" imported is a car he brought over from Canada on 1/1 because Canada didn't specify it was an 8/1/89 date and just lists it as 1989 making it 25 years old.

QFT. OP didn't read the whole article.

I read the article linked from another site (JNC), and it gave me hope that getting a slightly newer and better equipped Delica will be a possibility. I have been looking at getting an 89, but thought that the customs agents went by production month, and year. If it is indeed only the year then I am happy because the 89 models are better than the 87-88's, and potentially a bit easier to come by. Not that any that old are easy to find even in Japan.

I'll jump on the jalopnik dog pile.

Boo urns to them about everything.

all i know is that my cousin is going to japan in 2 years for his junior year in college. he had an exchange student with him at christmas who said he would be my japan hook-up for a fly in/buy/export of an R32 GTR at that time(should $ be there), as there will be 3 legal years of them at that point via the 25 year rule. his brother in japan drives one, and the kid was a total gearhead. once we got beyond the barrier of me learning english in cleveland and him learning it in japan, it was a fun conversation.

In reply to kanaric:

Reread the article. You must have not read the whole thing. Like Moparman said, he found out his first GT-R was illegal and got rid of it. He brought over a another one from Canada on the first and went through the correct process to declare the car.

I stopped going to the Jalopnik site a while ago, but I still get updates on my FB feed.

Why are reading Jalopnik? They are the National Enquirer of automotive journalism.

Flight Service wrote: Why are reading Jalopnik? They are the National Enquirer of automotive journalism.

That's a terrible thing to say about the National Enquirer!

SlickDizzy wrote:

moparman76_69 wrote: You apparently didn't read that entire article. He ended up selling that car to someone that was supposed to export it, but they didn't. The car he "legally" imported is a car he brought over from Canada on 1/1 because Canada didn't specify it was an 8/1/89 date and just lists it as 1989 making it 25 years old.

QFT. OP didn't read the whole article.

QFTT. For me, Jalopnik is a good read most of the time. While Gawker sites do have a fair bit of sensationalism (who doesn't?), it would be slim pickins for general car stories on the internet without them.

Most of their work is shenanigans. I still frequent at work...well because it's entertaining reading the comments on each article. It's like the NASIOC of internet journalism. They do release some pictures of new models and so on before some other sites too which is neat.

Datsun1500 wrote:

Mazdax605 wrote: I read the article linked from another site (JNC), and it gave me hope that getting a slightly newer and better equipped Delica will be a possibility. I have been looking at getting an 89, but thought that the customs agents went by production month, and year. If it is indeed only the year then I am happy because the 89 models are better than the 87-88's, and potentially a bit easier to come by. Not that any that old are easy to find even in Japan.

Speaking as someone who has actually imported a car, they do go by month and year. The paperwork on this guys gtr did not specify month, and someone missed it. He is an idiot for bragging about it. That car is not 25 years old yet, and if someone wants to make his world miserable, they can. It's the same as the guys that had newer minis with older paperwork/vins. Just because the first guy missed it, does not mean it can't be seized later.

Extreme truth here.

Seriously, wait the few months until its legit 25 years old. Much easier than dicking with customs.

Also, didn't he pretty much fess up to deliberately falsifying a customs document there? Couldn't that carry some harsh penalties?