Re-exportation of old/classis cars

[iRage]

The re-exportation of old cars has been opened up the government and seems to be heavily debated by various actual and wanna be auto pundits in SL. 

As with anything this has its pros and cons....how can this be managed without letting go of our automotive heritage (which is far more colorful than what the current generations are leaving behind) ? Will it boost a proper restoration industry ?

Since we have members from the foremost authoritative body on Classic Cars in the country to home-grown restorers; what are your thoughts ? 

Edited October 21, 2020 by iRage

[Gummybr]

1 hour ago, iRage said:

The re-exportation of old cars has been opened up the government and seems to be heavily debated by various actual and wanna be auto pundits in SL. 

As with anything this has its pros and cons....how can this be managed without letting go of our automotive heritage (which is far more colorful than what the current generations are leaving behind) ? Will it boost a proper restoration industry ?

Since we have members from the foremost authoritative body on Classic Cars in the country to home-grown restorers; what are your thoughts ? 

I think even earlier they used to export those cars, didnt know if there was any issue in that (legally). My maternal grand fathers old Jaguar is now in an European country it seems. Don't if any regulations were bought to curb exports of old vehicles.

[iRage]

1 hour ago, Gummybr said:

I think even earlier they used to export those cars, didnt know if there was any issue in that (legally). My maternal grand fathers old Jaguar is now in an European country it seems. Don't if any regulations were bought to curb exports of old vehicles.

They introduced policies that prohibited old plate cars from being exported. Perhaps @MasterDoncan shed more light.

[MasterDon]

16 minutes ago, iRage said:

They introduced policies that prohibited old plate cars from being exported. Perhaps @MasterDoncan shed more light.

It was always possible to export all cars 1 SRI 1 onwards. The ban was for all cars registered before that.

This was brought on by the Vintage Car Club's heavy lobbying in the 80s,90s after a lot of rare cars were exported. Now they are removing that law and allowing all cars including single and double letter 'english number cars' (Z,CE,EN...) to be exported.

We stand to lose a lot of very precious cars and models if this proceeds. for very short-term, very negligible financial gain.

[Gummybr]

46 minutes ago, MasterDon said:

It was always possible to export all cars 1 SRI 1 onwards. The ban was for all cars registered before that.

This was brought on by the Vintage Car Club's heavy lobbying in the 80s,90s after a lot of rare cars were exported. Now they are removing that law and allowing all cars including single and double letter 'english number cars' (Z,CE,EN...) to be exported.

We stand to lose a lot of very precious cars and models if this proceeds. for very short-term, very negligible financial gain.

Maybe they have a few very rare cars in their sights which could fetch very high premiums. Lets hope we dont lose some of the very rare models. Then again its upto the owners.

[iRage]

19 hours ago, Gummybr said:

Maybe they have a few very rare cars in their sights which could fetch very high premiums. Lets hope we dont lose some of the very rare models. Then again its upto the owners.

...if so...would it be these very same cars we do NOT want to be sent out of the country ?

On one hand I feel like the car sales people are going to be buying up the likes of beetles and old Corollas and shipping them out with huge markups for themselves (a non running...beaten up Morris Minor runs goes for about 750-1mil yen over here). This is inevitably going to raise the price of older cars which a lot of us went for to get our hands dirty and experienced in whilst some had to resort to as that is the only thing they could afford (which is going to be a problem when the country's transport system is utterly garbage).

On the other hand...it is some what sad to see restorers, especially in the JDM scene, jumping at the opportunity to sell some of their projects out of the country (project they themselves started saying it was for love and not about money and advised others that they should never expect to recover what you sink in to a project). Especially when these project cars are based on rare variants in SL and are talking about`doing up and selling off more rare cars in the country.

On the other hand this could also boost the restoration industry as well as proper restoration of vehicles will be sought after; but then perhaps a less destructive way of doing that might have been to allow the import of old cars purely for restoration and re-export.

The purists restorers, the creative in resto-moders, the thrill/experience seekers and the ones who are just in it for the show and glamor are truly being shown.

[matroska]

AFAIK this was simply a proposal and was not approved.

On a related but slightly OT observation : Most(I say most cos we do have some impeccable stuff like Masterdons MG) of the 'classic's here which are just lumps of cataloy with toyota steering wheels would really struggle to find a market elsewhere. Take a look at the restorations they do in other countries.