Off to Germany

I found some more pics of the car on vwvortex:

93celicaGT2 wrote:

Carson wrote: In reply to 93celicaGT2: Well, basically, the entire budget was shot building the car so there was no room to buy decent hood pins. The easier and more secure option was bolting the struts to the hood. My real guess would be to lower the car while still maintaining an ideal suspension geometry and travel, but I don't really know for certain.

Hrmmm... if your real guess is correct.... how do i do this? I can see all kinds of nightmarish issues with doing this, including possibly custom control arms, which unless i miss my guess, could have solved geometry problems to begin with? Or am i not picturing a suspension correctly, and this could be done with stock control arms?

Yeah, i've seen pictures and videos of the car...

Now it seems like it's just a by-product of a tube chassis. I don't want to mess with a tube chassis.

Yeah I'm looking into something diesel for the wife and 3 kiddios over there. A mk1 escort sounds really tasty right now, though I've got a year of Internet trolling before I get there.

It would be cool if you could bring a car with you to Germany that you could sell on the local economy at a profit. I suppose they would go nuts for black 80's firebirds.

Drewsifer wrote: See if you can pick up one of these bad boys.

I thought those were sold in Japan. That's the only place I ever saw one.

Buy a gently used C5 'Vette here and bring it with you over there and sell if for a tidy little profit.

In reply to Rza: That my friend is a genius idea, maybe I'll be able to fund both cars with one car sale, ok new question what car here would I be able to buy cheap and sell over there?

Mustang Cobra R springs to mind, besides the C5 vette

Off the wall, how about an FD RX-7? They might be rare there.

Type Q wrote:

Drewsifer wrote: See if you can pick up one of these bad boys.

I thought those were sold in Japan. That's the only place I ever saw one.

I think they where only sold in Japan. How close is Europe to there?

Yeah, I wonder what they would like that is rare over there and cheap here. Any ex-pat Germans want to chime in?

Maybe a cheap classic, like a Mustang?

Aybe not a cobra r

Ex-pat German here .

Most people won't know what a Mustang Cobra-R is, so nobody's going to pay a premium for one. C5 Corvette (or pretty much any Corvette) is a better idea. Classic Mustang should sell pretty well, but again, prices need checking. A few years ago it was cheaper to buy one in the UK than in the US.

FD RX-7 - it's very rare over in Germany but people who want one will just get one from the UK where they are cheap and relatively plentiful.

Other ideas with potential would be:

• Regular European classic with a known penchant for rusting. Research very carefully but a lot of people used to bring over old Porsches, Karmann Ghias and the like. Italian stuff from the Southwest might be worth thinking about, too.
• If you want to bring over something American, I'd go for something that's pre-1979 and unmodified. With a V8, naturally. That age would allow registration as a historic vehicle, which has massive tax advantages. As Germany taxes cars by displacement and emissions, 80s and 90s cars with V8s can be rather expensive to tax.

BoxheadTim wrote: FD RX-7 - it's very rare over in Germany but people who want one will just get one from the UK where they are cheap and relatively plentiful.

Haven't been to the UK or Germany, so I don't know how it works, but wouldn't a LHD RX7 be more desirable in Germany than a RHD one?

I just had a thought Z28 camaro ls1 type

Nope. Lots of GIs, lots of Transmaros, and to be honest, they just aren't up to Bahn speeds, and the Germans know it. Germans like classic American metal, but they do not like loud.

The earlier post about odd rust prone German Euro stuff is spot on. 914s, Ghias, even 2002s, a 356 if you can swing it VW Buses, Things, etc.

What surpised me the most was ho peppey the small displacement stuff is over there. I had a BMW 316 thats just rocked on the autoboahn.

As for you, they were new when i was there, but they are probably pretty cheap. Opel Calibra.

New generation Pontiac GTO? I guess that wouldn't be as popular due to tax-by-displacement laws. It's a stupid law.

Mental wrote: Nope. Lots of GIs, lots of Transmaros, and to be honest, they just aren't up to Bahn speeds, and the Germans know it. Germans like classic American metal, but they do not like loud. The earlier post about odd rust prone German Euro stuff is spot on. 914s, Ghias, even 2002s, a 356 if you can swing it VW Buses, Things, etc. What surpised me the most was ho peppey the small displacement stuff is over there. I had a BMW 316 thats just rocked on the autoboahn. As for you, they were new when i was there, but they are probably pretty cheap. Opel Calibra.

ok thanks that's good to know, I don't know about the calibra, I really don't want to go over there and get something fwd unless it's a lancia fulvia, I really want something classic.

Classic cars in Germany are usually owned by collectors. Germans are car enthusiast, but they view cars and driving differently. Public transportation is excellent and many folks simply keep their cars for touring the countryside. If it is a rare car, it will cost you some money.

Germany has the TUV inspection laws. Basically roadworthniess inspections. It's not Japan strict, but it is strict. Keeping an old car on the road over there is expensive. You are not allowed leaks, lights out, or rust. Hence the old cars that are kept there are very loved, and the going prices reflect that. They activaly encourage auto recycling, so peaple just don't hold onto beaters for the sake of it. The junkyards there are amazing. Very organized, very clean and they turn over quickly.

The idea of coming back with a gray market car is gone the way of the dodo. There was a time you were allowed to do the mods and certify it yourself, but the US DOT changed that and you have to be a certified company to do it.

If you want something cool, and classic, a 10 year-old Merc or BMW is the way to go. The US junkyard will be full of them. You can get them in diesel, and they will haul the family when needed. They just aren't collectable per sea. When you get on base, everyone has the "Lemon Lot" especially in the spring when everyone is leaving and selling their cars. You can get a decent deal there, but count on the maintence to be ignored. Look for something that just passed inspection. The auto hobby shops there are very well run becuase they have to be and they have US only junkyards to encourage US personel to not abandon their cars. So the upkeep is quite easy for a shadetree mechanic.

Bamholder (at least used to be) fairly large so the facilties are there. When I was there in the early 90's there were three junkyards within 45 minutes of my house in Kaisersluagtern. But a lot of those bases aren't there anymore.

You can also buy cars on the economy, they'll be better, but carry a higher premium. Don;t dismiss all FWD cars, there are some really fun ones there. But again, RWD falls into the BMW, Merc, Audi, catagorey.

a friend of mine at work used to (with his brother) buy Harley's here and import them to Germany and sell at a decent profit.

Or if you want to be a kill-joy and consider something realistic, then:

If you get an early E24 M635CSi, it'll be eligible to come back in the US with that rolling 25-year-old restriction. Or any other E24 with some nice Alpina bits...

I might have to take bumble bee with me

http://suchen.mobile.de/fahrzeuge/showDetails.html?id=124058226&__lp=19&scopeId=C&sortOption.sortBy=searchNetGrossPrice&sortOption.sortOrder=DESCENDING&makeModelVariant1.makeId=5600&makeModelVariant1.modelId=10&makeModelVariant1.searchInFreetext=false&makeModelVariant2.searchInFreetext=false&makeModelVariant3.searchInFreetext=false&vehicleCategory=Car&segment=Car&siteId=GERMANY&damageUnrepaired=ALSO_DAMAGE_UNREPAIRED&export=ALSO_EXPORT&customerIdsAsString=&lang=en&pageNumber=1

Wow, 60k Euros for a V6 Camaro. Maybe you should get one and sell it over there. Although that particular one is being sold in France.

Lancia Delta Integrale. The early ones are getting old enough to take home.

Yeah the deltas are awesome and are on the short list in my head.

JeepinMatt wrote:

BoxheadTim wrote: FD RX-7 - it's very rare over in Germany but people who want one will just get one from the UK where they are cheap and relatively plentiful.

Haven't been to the UK or Germany, so I don't know how it works, but wouldn't a LHD RX7 be more desirable in Germany than a RHD one?

It would be, but given the price difference between a RHD one and a LHD one, a lot of people will go for the RHD one. There might be the odd serious rotaryhead willing to pay (a lot) extra for a LHD one, but I don't know how prevalent these are. Keep in mind that I've seen RHD ones with good compression for about GBP 3k here in the UK.