MotoRex or Bust...

[micro]

I have done a lot of research as of recently, and it seems that regardless of what i do, motorex is going to have to get $25,000 from me to make my imported skyline US 50 state legal. I recently wrote http://www.wallacelab.com/ and this is the response i received.
***************
Thank you for your interest in our facilities. At this time we are not pursuing the importation of the Skyline. The company I believe you refer to in your comments is Motorex. They have performed the necessary crash testing for DOT and had the vehicle approved.

We have not, nor are we willing, to pay the exorbitant costs associated with procuring such data from Motorex. We've been in this business for more than 17 years with our mainstays being Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, Jaguar and Ferrari vehicles. We rarely perform modifications on Toyotas, Nissans, VWs, and other Japanese vehicles. This fact is due to the willingness of the owner to incur the expenses associated with the importation and conversion of their vehicles, and not due to any discrimination on our part.

If you performed the modifications yourself, you would still have to go through Motorex to confirm the modifications and submit the necessary proof in photos to DOT and paperwork to both the DOT and EPA, such that, upon completion, you could legally title and register the vehicle in the US.

Sorry I haven't more positive information.

Sincerely,
Ms. Lynn Bevis
Wallace Environmental Testing Laboratories, Inc.
2140 Wirtcrest Lane
Houston, TX 77055
(713) 956-7705
(713) 956-0104 facsimile
***********************
Damn that is pretty bunk right there, so before i go and shell out 80-100 grand on a new skyline from motorex, can someone please let me know how cheaply i can buy one in either Europe/Japan/or Australia? Doing it this way, i am hoping i can find one plus the cost of shipping it and the 25 grand to motorex, totaling less than the 85 grand for a r34 that motorex currently wants for theirs. Please let me know, as i am really really interested in getting an r34 in the very near future! thanks again all

--->me :monkeypis import hassles

[SkylineUSA]

That's a shot of bad news.

Anyways, if you get a 95 or later GTR you will only have too shell out $17,000 for the mods. You can pick up a 95 GTR off of www.autopoint.nz.co in the $22,000-$28,000 price range. Given those numbers you should be able to come out a head a few thousand dollars cheaper.

[DVSNCYNIKL]

I believe that answer they have supplied you with is pretty much it. While buying the car itself from some place else will cheapen the price up, you're still going to have to shell out the money for the conversion to US regulations. If you find one in that website that has been suggested, I believe if you contact motorex and let them know which car you want. You can purchase it and then have motorex do the conversion for whatever price it is that they will do it for.

[micro]

Thanks for all your help so far guys, It looks like i am going to be getting myself a 95 gt-r as of now, b/c i cant seem to justify spending $40,000 more on a r34 gt-r. Ill keep ya all updated!

[SkylineUSA]

That will be the year for me as well when I get to England. Just incase I have to ship it back to the states, and can't find another way to get it changed over to US specs.

[SkylineUSA]

I just found out today that MotoRex can get a fully loaded 2000GTR Vspec for under $35,000 over in the Japanesse Auctions in near mint condition. And what can we get for that price a R32GTR,oh and those are going for $8000.

[SkYLiNeFrEaK]

Originally posted by SkylineUSA
I just found out today that MotoRex can get a fully loaded 2000GTR Vspec for under $35,000 over in the Japanesse Auctions in near mint condition. And what can we get for that price a R32GTR,oh and those are going for $8000.

8,000?

Hell i can afford that, but i want that beast called the R34 GTR Vspec. Those are the shit, hell I wouldn't mind modding it out ethier. Body kit, engine mods!!!

Hell yeah!!

*looks in wallet, finds 100 dollar*

[Cu-Chullain]

Get in touch with someone in Japan, preferably in Oki. I just came from there and you can get cars really cheap. I've seen R32 gts-t's and such going for 1-2k and occasionally you'll see a 33 or 34 for sale too. If you can get someone to hook you up then all it needs is shipping. Then Motorex's fees dont seem to bad. I looked everywhere for a way to get mine over but then decided to just go with Motorex, but I got my R32 GTS-T for 15 buxs!! And the military's shipping mine. So Im out just the Motorex fees.

[Smokin Dave]

in regards to wallace labs, i just got my response back from them today (11/15/01) and they are still a no go on the skyline, but i talked to a company in dallas, and the guy there told me that they would do some of their own research on the skyline and see what they might be able to do.

[MotoRex]

Here is a list of all the Registered Importers.

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/import/RiHT0108.htm


You can call them all up - and ask them if they can import a Skyline for you. I made the list available. I am not afraid of competition , but there is no legal competition.

Even better yet - just ask them how much it normally costs to import a vehicle from Europe - like a 911 Porsche or a Mercedes 500 . Most places charge about $8500 - or more to legalize cars that were orginally in the US.

Then ask if they did the emissions certification themselves or if they did an FOI on it , and ask them if they did crash testing on the cars....

We did this on the Skyline. The stuff is not cheap - the stuff is not easy. If it were there would be lots of other cars here in the US. The US government does not want the cars here and they are the ones that make it hard.

[SkylineUSA]

Hi MotoRex,

Nice to see you have found this site.

Why did you start importing the skyline?

Did you have investors to back you up to start the business?

What year did you start MotoRex?

Thanks for importing the GT-R. I know that you are not making a killing on each car, but you do have to make a fairly heafty profit to keep the doors open since you guys do not deal with high volume.

[Enzo250GTO]

I've also looked into this matter quite a bit. I spoke to one person which told me MotoRex wants $100,000 for a copy of the crash test. But $25,000 (for the conversion) sounds a little high and the used market in Japan is excellent because they like everything new, then again I have two more years before I return from work so hopefully the Dallas company will have done their test to create some competition.

[jimmythesaint]

Could you repost a correct url to the registered importers list please.
That link does not go to any list, it generates a message that says document cannot be found.

Thank you.

J

[Casper42]

Take his URL
Cut off the HTML File Name
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/import/
Go to the Site, and Voila, the second link is exactly what you want.

The 0108 was from Aug-2001

[GulfCoastGTR]

I checked into this oh about 1995. Printed out a ton of crap from NHTSA, and I emailed Wallace Labs in Houston. They told me thatb nothing could be done because the car wasn't on the nonconforming vehicle list unless I wanted to volunteer a car for testing. Then MotoRex came along. I checked the petition lists on NHTSA for almost a year, then found all the PDF files they had on the GTR/GTS project. Lots of pics and replacement parts from other Nissan vehicles. The reinforcement process of the seats, doors, dash, etc have a confidentiality clause so no info was available (for free at least). This is why other RI's will not touch the Skyline. They don't have the info to do some of the mods without paying to get the info from Motorex or crashing the vehicles themselves. I will give kudo's to Motorex for tackling this huge task; however, it seems that the costs incurred could have been made up for by now. Used cars, and Skyulines, are cheap in Japan. Anyone who's been there can vouch for that. As for the other info, SkylineUSA can vouch for me; I gave him copies of all that info. He used to be my neighbor.

Cheers