exporting to france

[dave thomas]

hello i'm intending to buy a chimeara and take it back to france does anyone have experience of where to get the appropriate paperwork from ? i'm assuming i won't get a certificate of conformity now that tvr are no more but possibly a type approval? i have had experience with the french system before but with existing manufacturers, can anyone help?

[nig-gtv]

Not sure, but reading this advert suggests it might nit be easy:

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/449784.htm

Anyone know who the seller was?

[dave thomas]

thanks for that hope i have more luck!
dave

[S6 Devil]

I had a Frenchman email me who was interested in buying my Chim and exporting it to France. Having given him the engine number he got back to me saying that he wasn't allowed to register that engine number in France.

[Uncle Fester]

Does anyone know about this certifcate of conformity?

Does it have to be issued to an individual car, or does one certificate cover a model, a years production, or what?

I wonder if we could get hold of a certificate that was issued for one car and get the TVRCC to issue something similar for others.

[Cider Andy]

There's two issues here, one of Type Approval and one of Conformity. The Chimaera, by virtue of the numbers manufactured, had European Type Approval (number e11*97/27*0096*01) but the French préfecture will require a Certificate of Conformity before the car can be registered. This is specific to your car and would normally come from the vehicle manufacturer or agent, which is what makes it difficult.

Have you tried contacting TVR? Whilst they're not manufacturing cars at the moment, the company is still an entity with an address: maybe they could supply the document? Another thing to consider is that some préfectures will only accept the document in French.

Beyond that you might be able to go the single vehicle approval route (réception de titre isolé). Contact DRIRE in your département for details.

In any event you'd have to change the headlamps to LHD units. Backlit numberplates may cause a problem and if your car has 'pepperpot' rear lights you have to swap the rear fog lamp and reversing lamp around.

[SimonV8ster]

I've also heard recently that you have to 'register' it every year, not too sure what that means or what it entails but sounds like its a bit of a pain in the arse job to get it all done.

[Cider Andy]

SimonV8ster said:

I've also heard recently that you have to 'register' it every year, not too sure what that means or what it entails but sounds like its a bit of a pain in the arse job to get it all done.

No, you don't have to. It only needs re-registering when it changes owner or moves between départements. At that point there is a registration fee which works out at €32 per fiscal horsepower (CV, hence the name of the Citroën 2CV) which would work out at several hundred pounds but then there's no annual road tax to pay.