- You know, when we become a connoisseur
in the car community, okay, we find ourselves saying,
"What can I do to own the rarest of the rare?"
The blue eyes, white dragon of the car community.
The first edition Blastoise, if you will.
Okay, so what we do is we go on to the proper internet,
the world wide web.
We go online and see anything across the seas
that sparks our interest because there is nothing
in our tiny, little country that we actually want.
And we want something that nobody else could possibly own.
We open up our calculator
and we go 2020 minus 25
and then go search for 1995 JDM cars overseas.
To just see that we can bring home some beautiful cars
to this patriotic, slightly sick country, okay.
By the way, wash your hands.
I'm Alex, (mumbles) on Instagram
and today we're going to be talking about
the ultimate flux in car community.
The, "Wow, do you see that guy with that car?"
The Instagram formulio for popularity.
We're going to be talking about you wanting to import a car.
(heavy bass music)
And if you're just jumping into this,
don't forget to subscribe so while you're stuck at home
you can keep up to date with all the bangers we're posting.
And if you're looking for after-market wheels, tires
or suspension, be sure to hit us up
over at fitmentindustries.com where we're shipping
pretty much every single day.
We're still open.
All right, it's just quiet and cold around here
and not as many people as I would like.
And if you guys don't want to pay the whole thing up front,
we do have zero percent financing through Affirm
so you can make monthly payments,
it's not due until 30 days.
There's a whole disclaimer that I have to tell you
if I tell you anymore but it allows you to get
all your stuff now and not have to pay until, well,
May, June, summertime.
What else do you want to know?
The history of importing cars
into the States isn't anything new.
And it was something that started off with American soldiers
that were stationed overseas during the Second World War.
A little fondness grew onto the European vehicles
that were over at the time
and there was little to no restriction
on importing these vehicles.
So, servicemen would purchase these vehicles
and import them to the States to be ready for them
when they returned home.
Because of the new market, these imported vehicles would be
hella cheap and give a lot of these servicemen
a better bang for buck on these cars
versus their domestic counterparts
that were available at the time.
This donned the area of the...
I had myself up, it was called the gray market.
This continued to happen until regulations continued to grow
in the mid-60's and into the 70's
with the growing concern of EPA, those little fun suckers.
All right, manufactures pressing governments to slow it down
like Honda and Toyota, because they didn't want
people to import in anything
because that just means that they couldn't
make that much money.
And even the DVM was trying to control
the safety regulations on vehicles
that were coming into the States
because apparently that matters.
Eventually the Motor Vehicle Compliance Act
would come into the fray and essential crush
the wild, wild west of importing vehicles
and the process to really just slow it down
because it was just getting so out of hand.
And this was a big boy nerf when it comes down
to importing cars, with the amount of vehicles
from about 70,000 to under a thousand in about ten years.
And that's a big ol' ouchie there brother.
That, that's painful, okay.
Big ol' companies weren't too happy with their cars
getting shipped with making a penny off of it
because manufactures don't like it
when they don't make money.
And ultimately this lead to the restrictions
and legislation passing.
Companies like Mercedes Benz and Nissan
were getting hurt hard by these imports
and they needed to find a way
to stop people from importing cars themselves
and instead getting them directly from the manufacturer.
I just played Warzone.
Second game, got second place.
No big deal.
(music)
But it was happening to Japan as well.
Japan in the early 90's were riding a pretty tall horse
and had a good chunk of money to play with.
People were wanting domestic vehicles,
like the good ol' Astro Van, Chevy Caprices,
and even the GMC Typhoons in response to Americans
wanting Skylines, Toyotas and a bunch of German cars.
It was like a nice little tradezee
that was happening in the back of the school bus.
It was at this point that things
started to get a little sideways, though.
Because you could still import
but the registration, the restrictions,
and the hoops to jump through
just got a wee bit more difficult.
And just getting them processed was harder to do.
Companies that still tried to import cars
had incredible difficult times doing so
while still making enough money
to actually even make it worth it.
And it was still done, but it wasn't,
(mumbles)
It's like shooting film, you know, like it's fun
but it's not technically going to get you much more
than a digital photo but it's fine.
And over time gray market vehicles would eventually die.
Restrictions and regulations made it, both, not profitable
and not fun for enthusiasts to really get a good deal
out of any car out there around the world, until about 1998.
In 1998, the NHTSA
or National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Wow, you just couldn't shorten that one up a bit, huh?
The NHTSA passed lightened regulations
that allowed easier importation of import vehicles
over 25 years of age.
This was a big deal.
This was like the golden ticket for people like you
and people like me, because at the end of the day
the only reason we can do what do right now is
because of this new regulation.
This started to bring back companies
that could import cars from the good ol' island of fun
with a few less restrictions while still ensuring
that the car met the minimum requirements to be on the road.
Not much got imported in the beginning days
of this new regulation because not many people
knew about it, but after a few years
things truly began to sparkle.
MotoRex came bursting onto the scene
like an over-energetic 12-year-old
that had his first Red Bull
and just decided that he wanted to begin slanging cars
left and right.
(kid laughing and screaming)
Now, that was predominately Nissan Skylines
and that is an entirely,
that is an entirely different video
but we should probably talk about it at some time.
MotoRex, you guys know MotoRex,
you know, the company imported R34's, lots of drugs,
partying, the whole nine yards, owner wasn't that,
cease and desist, lawsuits, jail, cars getting stolen.
Yeah, it's a different video.
Even though a few companies left a bad taste
in the mouths of a lot of enthusiasts,
the NHTSA regulations truly began to reopen the doors
to import cars.
And that's when you fast forward to today
and the 25-year-old rule now allows
some absolute bangers of cars to come
to this beautiful red, white and blue country.
Okay, but we're not here to talk about
the history of importing cars,
you want that go grab that history book
that you've never picked up, okay,
and sociology or whatever the hell it's called these days.
We're here to talk about you wanting to import a car.
Okay, well set down your favorite R34/GT-R wallpaper
and grab that credit score because we're about to talk
what it's like to actually import a car.
Feel like I'm making so much noise with my windbreaker now.
Ow, my weinious.
Importing a car, is kind of like buying a garage build.
It starts off fantastic, you're stoked, we're stoked,
I'm stoked, you're stoked, it's a good time.
It's kinda like dating someone that seems to perfect, okay.
Then over time you realize why nobody was dating
him or her and then you realize also why not many people
actually do it.
Importing a car has some fantastic benefits.
You have access to platform that is rare, unique
and unlike pretty much anything else
that's in the United States, for the most part.
And on top of that, a lot of after-market overseas vehicles
feature more high-performance, highly tuned variant
to what the United States received during the same time.
And it is pretty banging but there are a few caveats,
if you will, to doing something like this.
Because importing a car that's rare is,
it's importing a car that's rare.
You have less access to parts and support communities
and affordable pieces and things like that.
And sure there opportunities that allow you to swap parts
from another car in case your imported one brakes
but it requires a little bit more finesse
and a more educated automotive enthusiast
to find their way around actually keeping a car
like that alive.
If you've never MacGyvered a car before,
it's probably not the best idea
to jump into buying an imported car
because you'll need to be able to sometimes
make your own parts, find work-arounds from OEM parts,
and be patient as you wait for certain things
to come from overseas, like from Japan or Europe,
if you can even find them.
When it comes to modifying these cars,
it's still possible to make some
truly insane and unique cars.
And they are a blast to drive.
The 1990's JDM cars have massive potential,
you can see it in the RX-7's, and the Skylines,
and the 3000 GT's that have come overseas.
But you can also see what the European cars,
like AMG's and M Series vehicles that can also be imported.
Even the Evo 3 is a car that's just a banger
to pick up right now
and you can do it without necessarily
breaking the bank, initially.
You still have some insane wheel, tire,
and suspension options on a lot of these cars
with most people ending up going to the OG's,
like WORK Wheels, Volt, Gram Lights, SSR, WedsSport,
which you can get at fitmentindustries.com,
just to keep that JDM car period correct.
Period correct is a huge thing on imported cars,
which is the most underrated thing in the automotive scene,
right now, at least in my eyes.
Essentially it just means that if the car was built in 94,
having modifications and wheels associated
with that timeframe of modifying that car back
as if it was in 1994 or 1995.
If you do that you're definitely playing
the car game on legendary mode though
because parts are more difficult to come by
and even more expensive to maintain.
But it does, it does as they would say, slap.
(slap)
I don't even know what that means.
If I were to do that, I don't know what you what you...
Anyway, importing a car has quite
a few hoops to jump through.
You can do it yourself if you want
but it's best to find a broker that's done it a time or two
because if you mess it up, you'll be out
a large chunk of change, patient, and probably a car.
Companies like Japanese Classics have founded
a pretty killer business around importing cars
and does a fantastic job with ensuring
that the car you see on the import block
over across the way is the one that you end up buying
without too many surprises.
Now maybe the plug will get me a discount on
R33 GT-R because I want one really bad
and, for some reason, they just went up to $50,000 in price.
Not entirely sure how that happens.
There's lots of importing-car companies
that do very similar jobs.
Importing a car is for someone that has patience, time,
and a little bit of change that knows what they want
and how they want it and why, okay.
There are some many potentials out there,
that if you email an import company
and you ask them to find you a car
they'll probably just wanna toss you off a hillside
and I didn't say cliff or mountain
because Wisconsin doesn't have either of those.
Now in terms of importing cars
also comes with it's fair share of challenges,
such as limited parts, limited communities,
more expensive support and overall all of that can be doozy.
If you get in an accident, finding replacement parts
is relatively going to be a bad time, all right.
However, if you're up for the fight
and you wanna have that cool Laurel or that R32 GT-R
or that R33 or you want to have something neat,
you wanna have Japanese van for some reason
and you're willing put in the occasional work to keep it up
and make sure that nothing breaks on it
and you can MacGyver some stuff, it is a fun time.
So have you imported a car before or have dreams of doing so
let's us know below.
And if you're looking for after-market wheels, tires,
or suspension for your newly acquired import car
or just your summer build that's coming up
be sure to hit us up over at fitmentindustries.com.
Where we have everything you need from WORK Wheels
or otherwise.
And, of course, we have zero percent for Affirm
so if you wanna get stuff
but you don't want to pay on it right away,
you can actually do so then
your first payment's in like 30 days or something like that.
It's a new thing, we're very excited about it.
Hope you're excited about it because, guess what,
apparently when you can't go outside,
it's a little bit difficult, it's a little scary
to decide what you're going to do with your car build.
Let me tell you what you're going to do with your car build,
you're gonna finish it because this is the only time
that you're actually gonna work on it.
You know it, I know it.
If you're stuck at home
and you're still not working on your car
I got bad news for ya pal, it ain't never getting done.
So I'm gonna be your motivational speaker
for the next two, three weeks
to make sure that stuff gets done.
Anyway, I'm Alex for Fitment Industries.
We will see you later.
Peace.