Importing a car from outside EU: Taxes, Costs etc

[User33678888]

Does anyone on here have any experience doing this? I've found a car for sale in California that seems £30k cheaper than ones in Europe with more miles. They're only available in LHD..

Other than shipping it, what else would I need to pay? VAT? Import tax?

And could those costs be avoided or minimised if it's going to be a track only car and not need road registering, SVAing etc?

Cheers..

[anonymous-user]

Shipping
Insurance during shipping
Import Duty
VAT at 20% added on top of all the above
Vehicle conversion costs for UK (rear fog lamp, amber indicators etc)
IVA test fee

Basically it all adds about 30% of additional cost. So a car bought for £30k in California will have cost about £40k by the time it's on the road in UK.

[V8forweekends]

5 USA said:

Shipping
Insurance during shipping
Import Duty
VAT at 20% added on top of all the above
Vehicle conversion costs for UK (rear fog lamp, amber indicators etc)
IVA test fee

Basically it all adds about 30% of additional cost. So a car bought for £30k in California will have cost about £40k by the time it's on the road in UK.

The last two are age-dependent, I believe, and I think there may be tax concessions for really old stuff, if memory serves.

[User33678888]

Ah, I've done more googling. Looks like as it was built in the EU the import duty is only £50.

So as it would be a track only car I can avoid the
Vehicle conversion costs for UK (rear fog lamp, amber indicators etc)
IVA test fee

I can still see it adding 25% once the shipping is included so negates a fair bit of the saving, and I'd want to fly out to have a look at it before buying so doubt it'd end up much cheaper than buying one here or in mainland europe.

Still, one of these http://www.ferrarisanfrancisco.com/used/Ferrari/20... for under £140k all in would be a steal, relatively speaking.