Importing Update and License Stuff

I've had a minor setback with the import process.  I discovered some fees that I wasn't expecting which means that I probably won't be importing a car for a little while until I can save up some more money.

I have also started the process of getting my Swedish drivers license.  It's quite different from getting a license in the USA.  To start off with it has four different parts instead of just two.  The first is a practical test where you drive a car on a extremely slippery surface intentionally making it slide and then recovering from the slide.  I did this part today and passed.  The next part is a theory class on the various risks that can take place while driving.  I will be taking this course in two weeks.  After that you have to take a theory test which is like the written test in the USA covering the laws and such.  Finally you can take a practical road test where they actually test your driving.  Once these four tests and activities have been completed you will receive your drivers license.

So many choices...

I'm so torn on what to buy.  There's just so many different cars in different genres that I'm interested in.

For example there's the PS13 Silvia like this one:

Or the R32 Skyline like this one:

The problem with these cars is that they are worthless in the winter and here in Sweden we usually have at least 5 months of winter weather and it's going to be winter soon.

I only have garage space for one car and it is going to have to be used for the daily as I don't want to be scraping snow off the car all the time and I don't want to have to go out 10 minutes before leaving to warm up the car so my son doesn't get too cold.

I also have a few performance parts for an Impreza left over from my last Impreza.  They aren't much but it would be something I could start working with right away.

For these reasons I keep coming back to a Subaru Impreza but they are harder to find with the features that I want than the previous two cars.

But still, every time I look at the two pictures above I can help immediately thinking...WANT!!!

***Confused***

Step Two

Powervehicles has received my deposit and I am now receiving emails that contain cars that they think their customers might find interesting.  I have also received the login info to the website that lists all cars available at auction.  I've found a few interesting ones here and there but nothing I'm ready to bid on just yet. 

It is quite like being a kid in a candy store window in many ways as there are lots of cars that I would love to bid on but I can only pick one.  In addition I don't have an unlimited budget so that's kinda cruel too.

Step One

So I've finally started step one of importing a car from Japan.  The first thing that you need to do with getting PowerVehicles to ship a car to you is put down a 100,000 JPY deposit.  Today I transferred the money to them.  Once it is received I will be put on their notification list and I will receive several notifications per week of "interesting" cars coming up at auction.  I will also be given access to a website that allows me to search for cars coming up at auction myself.  When I see a car that I am interested in, I just need to let them know which car it is and what my maximum bid is.  Then when the car comes up they will bid on it, if my bid is the highest and last in the timeframe then I will win the car. 

Here's an example of the kind of info I'll receive on an interesting car:

Brian asked me what I was planning on importing and when I said that I was trying to get a Subaru Impreza STi Type RA he said "Oh ok cool, I thought u were trying to get into drifting lol?"  Well, I was going to answer with another comment but it just became too long so I'll answer in a post instead.

I do want to get more into drifting but there are several reasons why I'm going to go with the Subaru.  I've been a Subaru guy since 1998 when I ordered my first Impreza.  Until last year I've not driven anything daily other than an Impreza of one year or another.  I've owned 4 of them in fact.  I've also attended a rally school in Ireland where I was invited to participate in a sponsorship program, but since I didn't have an EU residence visa I couldn't actually join. -_-  The school taught me several things but one of the things I took away was that a professional rally driver of 30+ years thought that my driving was good.  That means that I can do something with it if I can just get the opportunity.  Just drifting probably isn't going to get me there in this country, but if I can get into Gymkhana and Rallying there are more opportunities.

Here in Sweden there isn't a lot going on in the drifting community.  It mostly consists of a few semi-professional groups that do exhibitions and such and then your average teenager who has had their license for a year just messing around.  There's really no middle ground so there isn't much of a community.  Also the police and the laws are much more severe than in other places, probably quite similar to Japan in a lot of ways I would imagine.  For example 21kph over the speed limit is an automatic license suspension, under that and they usually don't bother you.  So the grey areas are wide but narrow which makes it difficult to do anything in that zone.  A friend has an S13 and had to take off his carbon GT style wing.  It went through the vehicle inspection just fine but the police didn't like it so he had to remove it.  It wasn't huge or anything, he just ran into a bad cop I guess.  So those sorts of things make it difficult to do things like street drifting.  Combine that with the fact that the roads are typically either designed in a boring way drifting wise, or where they are fun, they are very narrow with granite curbs and it makes street drifting an even riskier thing than normal.  To my knowledge the concept of a drift day doesn't exist at the few race tracks here either.  They are also huge fans of speed bumps here in Sweden.  There's two types, one that goes all the way across the road that is about a meter wide and usually about 25cm tall.  The other type looks more like some sort of leftover from the world wars.  They are like a pyramid with the top cut off and are just a little bit narrower than the width of most cars.  Additionally they have these same sort of obstacles on lots of the roundabout's to slow people down before entering.  The lowered Audi barely makes it over without scraping or getting hung up.  There is no way a properly setup drift car would make it over them.  It'd wind up looking like a teeter-totter.

So I figure with the Impreza I could get into doing Gymkhana at the very least and maybe that could lead back into rallying.  I'm not sure if there are events here already but if not, it would be rather simple to start one.  Just need an empty parking lot and lots of cones.  There are lots of rally events in Sweden and even an FIA World Rally event in February. 

Mostly, right now I just want a car that I can have fun with year round and is something different from all the cookie cutter Saab's and Volvo's here.  I know Subaru's inside and out and I have lots of option parts that I can install right away so it just makes sense.

I've got a bunch of things that I'm doing as far as my finances are concerned, consolidating things, cutting corners and my base income should be doubling by the end of the first quarter 2012.  So the overall plan is to get the RA and at least have a car that I can enjoy, work on saving for a house & garage and then probably import a JZX100 that I can dedicate for drifting.

Check out this video of a guy I know doing Gymkhana in his Type RA.

Flaky People

One of the things I have the most trouble with in life are flaky people. If you want to do something and say you want to do it, then do it if you can and if you can't for whatever reason, explain that. In my last post I stated that I found a car that I wanted to buy. I contacted the seller asking if the car was still available and if so, did he have any more pictures and when could I come see it because I was very interested in it. After two days he hadn't responded so I sent another email. Several days after that he responded that he had pictures of all the damage on the car and would send them. A week later I still hadn't received any communication from the seller so I sent another email asking if he had found the pictures. He responded the next day stating that the car had been sold. What?!?

So...I've decided to bypass the middleman so to speak and am going to be purchasing the car I want at auction in Japan. I have located a buying agent who will handle the actual buying, all the paperwork and get the car shipped to me. Once the car arrives here in Sweden I will be responsible for handling all the paperwork and getting it registered. The buyer I have chosen to use is PowerVehicles.com. There are several reasons for this but among them are that Powervehicles can perform any desired modifications on the vehicle before shipping.  I have had several communications from them as well as seen many testimonials that have led me to trust them.

The end result should be that I will get a car that is in great condition as cars sold in Japan are typically very very clean and in like new condition for less money than I could find a similarly equipped car that has already been imported to Sweden.  Also the cars that have already been imported are not typically in the same condition as when they left Japan.

So watch this space as I detail out the process and how it goes.