+1 exact same situation.
I never said for you to fly around the country looking at them all and paying mechanics. Go through carsales and pick say 10 that are in your price range, look good in the pictures and seem to be legit. Call them - hell a phone call won't kill you - and ask some decent questions regarding paint, accident history, servicing, more high res photos etc. If you have done enough research you know what to look out for and will be able to narrow down that 10 to say 2.
I looked at a couple in Townsville when I first started and they were all shit, I then started doing what I just told you. I narrowed it down to two in Brisbane which were both exactly what I wanted and I was hell picky with very exact specifications (immaculate white stock standard Series II GTST, non sunroof with ABS under $20,000 with 50,000-80,000km and first or second owner in Aus). In essence I wanted the best condition series II with those specs in QLD that I could find. I flew down and went to look at the first one which was a fresh import and I had spoken to the guy a lot on the phone and the car was exactly how it was described. Took it for a test drive for quite a while, talked to him a lot about it and couldn't fault the car in any way so I bought it straight up and drove it back.
Honestly I just feel like you are doing something wrong. Importing one of these cars is just silly, maybe back in the day fair enough, but nowadays I just don't see the point.