That GTS is missing the all important hips and aero mirrors. I thought GTS first year was 1992 anyway.

 

Comes down to tires, glass, emissions, gauges and testing... Just write your RI a check for $15k and you should be good to go... Oh, bonds of course must be purchased and there are shipping costs too... No biggie...then wait about 6 to 12 months and go pick your car up! And hope it didn't get to banged up on the trip over requiring paint (for scratches like mine did!) or body work!

Thankfully all 928 year models are list on the allowable list! New FACTORY CATS will be required and are the single most expensive part of the import. Adding up all the lights (head, tail and fog/driving) is quite expensive though too and of course a new cluster is nothing to sneeze at either! There are ways around a few of these things, but not the cat and the work arounds are still quite expensive!

I LOVE this quote! "Nonconforming vehicles entering the United States must be brought into compliance, exported, or destroyed."

Oh, I forgot bumper sub structures (since our bumpers are just covers) and mirrors...

 

Its clearly S4 with just GTS rear bumper. First ROW GTS were done in '91 MY. As usual, model year changed in summer '91.

 

Just seen the 928 'GTS' on PistonHeads:

www.pistonheads.com/sales/3523312.htm

It is all so wrong. GTS my ***! And why an LHD from Japan?!

 

Yep... even has a pre-1989 dashboard (?).

The rear bumper cover has been replaced... for just cosmetics or an accident? The only 'factory' rears available now are for the GTS...

 

Premium sports cars in Japan are often LHD.

One of the Pelican guys that lives in MI bought two Japanese market cars and had them imported and through customs in Canada, a GTS and a Saab. He has family in Canada and lives in a border state, and last I heard is "working" on getting the cars to the USA.

Our government is just doing what those that pay them, GM et al, tell them to do, block grey market imports. Cars, prescription drugs, clearly the lawmakers know who they work for. Even with the laws bringing a Porsche in would not be that hard or costly, IF Porsche Cars North America wanted to be helpful and issue an official letter stating what is different.

The reason legal importing is so costly is that importers have no reason to make it cheap and most of their clientele are bringing in very expensive cars. When our Lincoln was three years old Ford asked us to participate in a emissions test held at one of the importers in SoCal. The parking lot was filled with $100k+ and ++++ cars. What I heard was that the testing on each car just for the emissions stuff Ford wanted was thousands of dollars.

OTOH pretty clearly a lot of cars are brought in illegally. Once the registration was "washed" in a loose state that only requires a bill of sale, hard to say outside of California how much of an issue it would be.

Trouble I think with many cars is that Calif wants Calif approved emissions systems, and technically with a grey car they don't exist when you consider things like the block ID etc which they do in a BAR inspection.

 

Didn't see this thread until today, but the first thing that crossed my mind when I saw two REALLY cheaps GTS's for sale in Japan, was this -

"Mar 11, 2011 – TOKYO -- A ferocious tsunami spawned by one of the largest earthquakes"

Certainly possible.

 

My LHD 89 S4 with 92,000 kilometers, shipped from Japan, no dents but who knows if the scratches were there before. DOT and an Alberta safety was $10,200

Maybe it wasn't a deal, maybe it was. I am new to the 928 world and never thought I would own a porsche.
To me it was and still is worth the price to have a 89 Euro. (now that I know a little more)

My buddies were buying $30G Harley's, I drive a Porsche for under $15.

Ya I had to do the mains and it needed a intake refresh, but other then that, I wouldn't have had to spend what I have.

I say get a post office box up here, reg and insure it here, drive it over.

Brad

 

Brad...you got a good deal. My car was +2X the price you paid but it is a real CDN car

I go back to my previous post......you need to be on the dock as the boat comes otherwise you could get badly screwed. the GT I worked looked good but I believe the car had an engine fire. By the time the car was properly repaired the owner sold it sometime after for a good loss.

 

VCat, no not the same car as the one on Pistonheads which has also been on UK ebay for about 6 months has flag mirrors rather than the teardrops