- Today I'm gonna explain
the 25 year year import law, why it exists, and by
the end of this episode you'll know how to safely buy a completely legal Skyline
GTR that you can insure and actually drive on the street. To find out how I went
to Toprank Importers in Cypress, California. (upbeat techno music) - My name's Sean Morris and I work here at Toprank International
Vehicle Importers. - What do I need to do to
get this car in America? - If you're in 48 states it's pretty easy. You know, we have the cars here. You call us up, you pay us the money, we ship you the car. - Like buying a used car anywhere else? - Like buying a used car anywhere, yeah. I mean, you come out and we prefer people come and have a look at them because, you know, they're
25, 27, 30 year old cars. We want them to know what they're getting. - So if you're in one of the 48 states where it's easy to buy an imported car, all you have to do is call
an importer like Toprank and you buy your R32 like any other car. - Now, if you're in Hawaii, sorry. Difficult, you guys have special rules and regulations and
I can't help you too much. - And we all know what the other state is. - California we have our
own EPA called the ARB. The ARB sets certain specific regulations for car's emissions. In order for these cars to
be exempt in California, '67 or older, if it's newer than that, '75 and newer, it's called direct import and we have to bring it into compliance. If it's '68 to '74, not even California seems to know what we need to do to 'em. - But for cars younger than 1967, the process is a little different. - So this car, 1992, we bring
it into California compliance. - Basically any car entering the state from out of the country has to pass rigorous emissions testing
in order to be road legal. - We take it to the emissions testing lab. The emissions testing
lab modifies the car, tests the car, takes it
to the California Referee, the Referee inspects
the car, tests the car. If it's good, everything's fine, they put what's called a B.A.R. label, Bureau of Automotive Repair
label, in the door jamb and then you can smog the car afterwards and two years later, like any regular car. - So does that process add another cost on top of buying this car? - It does, in California, unfortunately, because it has to go to the lab and it has to, you know, go to the Referee and do those other things, like, the cheapest car I usually
do, it's around $4,000. Say the Cappuccino or
something is about that. About 6,500 for most other turbo cars and a GTS-Ts and Supras, RS7s. Ten thousand on the GTRs unfortunately. - The emission testing does add a premium on top of the car's price. But it's worth it because
once get that B.A.R. label, you never have to worry about
passing emissions again. So the car has to be 25
years old to be imported? - Yes. - Why? - Because. Oh, no, I'm sorry, that was the answer. No, okay, well, because, that's the way the rules were written. That's the way the regulation. So 25 is kind of an arbitrary number. In the late '80s, so, there was a lot of, what they call, personal
imports of vehicles. - Back then you were pretty much free to import whatever car
you wanted into the States but the cars had to pass
American safety standards, including the installation of
safer bumpers and headlights. But a lot of people forgot to do that part and as a result a lot of illegal cars were just rolling around. - And so the NHTSA decided
to set up a program in order for them to set up a licensing, which has become the
registered importer program. And that went into effect back in '89 and they also basically said at 25 nobody probably wants this junk. - Registered importers
would be the only people allowed to import cars not originally made for sale in the US. That includes cars like the R32. So why'd they set the 25 year limit? - It's kind of old enough that's it outside the realm of
what anybody's gonna import. '89, right, so '64, back then, you know, who's gonna wanna bring in the '64 car? It doesn't affect new car sales. - Was there a certain manufacturer behind? - Mercedes, yeah, yeah. - If you wanted to you
could order a Mercedes without the ugly safety bumpers and with other features
that weren't available in the United States for cheaper than it cost to buy one
from an American dealer. The process wasn't without its drawbacks as you couldn't get a
warranty on an imported car but that didn't stop people from doing it. Costing auto makers
millions in lost sales. So Mercedes and other manufacturers heavily lobbied Congress to pass the Imported Vehicles
Safety Compliance Act, which, as we now know, banned cars younger than 25 years from
entering the country but-- - 25 isn't the only way
you can import cars. So, another legal method to import a car is that if you're what's
called a registered importer, you can import a car
that's less 25 years old and you have to bring it into compliance and then you can sell it here in the US. - Registered importers are
allowed to bring in cars as long as they make it
comply with US regulations but the procedure is a little different for cars less than 25 years old. What does that mean to bring
it into compliance like that? - So (sighs). Where this is one section of the Code of Federal Regulations. In here is a thing called
Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. - This book had everything
an auto maker has to follow to make a car legal to
sell in the United States. It was a dizzying list of things like crash safety standards,
to turn signal stocks, to the standardized symbols on your dash. - You have to go through
this and you have to go through all of these standards. So that's the thing
about being 25 years old. If the car's 24 years old, 364 days, you've gotta do all this stuff. Turns 25, don't care anymore.
- Wow. So what's this compliance procedure like? So crash tests are part of
the certification process. What does that entail? - So I used to work at
a place called MotoRex and MotoRex did do compliance
work, crash testing, on Nissan Skylines. We did front impact and side
impact testing back in 1999. When we were a registered importer, we had to bring the cars into compliance and tell them, and show
them, and prove it, and provide all the data
for the crash testing. - That's right, in order to
sell cars like the R33 and R34, Sean and importers like him, have to buy cars overseas
with the sole purpose of being crashed, as you might imagine, it's very, very expensive. - At a minimum if you're
starting to do stuff like that, I mean, you know, quarter of a million. - And that's just to cover crash testing. The car still needs EPA clearance and if it lives in California,
ARB testing on top of that. (laughing)
Bam. - Once you got a million deep or so, you're probably into your first car. That one car cost you a million dollars. Whatever it is, if it's
a Geo (bleep) Metro. - [Announcer] Meet the 1990 Geo. - So you don't always
have to wait 25 years to get your dream import
but a million dollars is a pretty steep fee to skip the wait. What are some of the more popular cars that you import through Toprank? - The most popular car we import R32 GTR. The next few years it's
still gonna be Skylines. I mean, people always ask
us, R34, R34, R34, you know. - Yeah. When that becomes legal
do you expect like a huge? - They're expensive. The thing, 43,000 of
these, 11,000 of those. - Not only is there a
smaller amount of R34s, there's demand for them
all over the world too and there's no guarantee
that someone in Japan will even sell you one. - Worldwide market, I mean, there are cars that are in Japan that you couldn't buy. There's almost no amount money that would part some
people from their car. If you offered them market value for it, they'd tell you (bleep) off. (laughs) You know? - Even though the import
laws make it difficult to get our hands on dream
cars like the Skyline, the personal connections
people have with their cars will make it even harder
as these cars get older. - There's a little pushback in Japan on exporting some of the-- - Yeah. - Especially Hakos and the stuff, the old kind of heritage cars. - Yeah. It's like selling off history. - Yeah and they're part of
people's family, you know? - Sean told me a lot about
how the import law works but I wanted to know how
he really felt about it. Do you think the import
restrictions are justified at all? - I really think, you know,
individuals should be able to decide what they want. The kind of society we have
where people are gonna sue you for certain things that opens
up all those liabilities and so I'm grasping for
it because it's like, you know, I don't really agree with them but that's what it is and
there's no way to change it. - This episode of Wheel House
is brought to you by FIXD. If you're like me and
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and enter DONUT at checkout for 10% off your order. Click the link in the description below and get your FIXD today. Thank you to Sean, Taka, and Yaska here at Toprank Imports for having us here. This was awesome, make sure to hit that yellow subscribe button right there. Oh, if you like the Skyline GTR, check out this Up to Speed on the Skyline. That was our very first
episode of Up to Speed. Check out this episode of Wheel House. I'm not sure what it is yet
but we'll put something there. Wear your seatbelt,
I'll see you next time. (upbeat music)
