Skyline Contacts;tokyo, Shizuoka

[changi]

hi all,

I am off to Japan soon to purchase a GTR [r32]. I have had a couple of contacts in the lead up to this trip [on the net] but as soon as I said I wanted to come over to view the cars offered, there was a sudden halt to all their correspondance. anyway, I have decided to go over regardless and see what I can find out about a possible purchase. so I am seeking the names/ numbers [if possible] of companies/contacts in Japan who may be able to help.

About two months ago I had my GTR stolen, so reckon I've been without one for far too long.

many thanks for any help.

[CeJay]

Have you tried organising something with j-spec? Or don't want to go that route, even if you head over there?

[changi]

Have you tried organising something with j-spec? Or don't want to go that route, even if you head over there?

yep, tried them. where are Jspec located,Aus or Japan?. intiially, they sent me photos/specs for three cars; but haven't replied to my last mail [7 days] so haven't time now flying over on Thursday.

thanks for that.

[funkymonkey]

Wanting to see every car that's available to you kind of works against your favour in that the best car for you could be anywhere in japan... its kind of like someone wanting to inspect every single ford falcon in Australia before buying one. What area of japan are you going to be in? That might help narrow down your options so you can personally inspect them.

[changi]

Wanting to see every car that's available to you kind of works against your favour in that the best car for you could be anywhere in japan... its kind of like someone wanting to inspect every single ford falcon in Australia before buying one. What area of japan are you going to be in? That might help narrow down your options so you can personally inspect them.

I don't expect to see all available GTRs; just those in the Tokyo, Shizuoka area and only those with a grading of 4- ish. that should narrow the field sufficiently.

if that plan doesn't work I will widen the search to other centres.

[Beer Baron]

well unless you are a member (ie dealer) of an auction house in japan you can't go in to view cars of any grade. be advised that any big auction shows thousands of cars a day. to see cars that you are interested in you ned to be able to use their terminals (again need access), then find a car of interest, note down the lot number. then use another lookup with that lot number to find where in the many yards it's located, and also note down where in the order it is to get an approximate time it will come up for auction. then you have to figure out the yards, get a shuttle/walk/run to approximately where it is, then search around for it. inspect it (you can't drive it anywhere), then get back to the auction room in time, then bid (again you can't bid unless you are a member/licenced buyer). even for dedicated and experienced car buyers it can take a month or more of physically attending 3 or 4 auctions a week (and more on-line) to find a specific car (ie grade 4B+, 32 GTR, late model). to be honest your first time in a japanese auction you will spend 80% of the day running around trying to find cars etc and most probably wont find anything worth bidding on. not many buyers will be willing to take you and hold your hand as you will just slow them down and they often have a lot of cars to get through for a lot of customers.

this pretty much limits you to car dealers in japan. and most dealers get their stock from auctions. so you are now paying another middle man. and you need a dealer that speaks excellent english and that you trust to organise de-reg, and get the car safely to the port, and get you the BL in a timely fashion etc. all big leaps of faith if you have never dealt with them before and you can't speak/read/write japanese yourself.

For a first timer with limited time (say 2 weeks) in japan you have little chance of buying a car at auction that suits you. and little chance of buying one at all.

try and see if any of the import agents in aus will hook you up with a trustworthy exporter and they may be willing to take you out to look at cars, but I doubt it. Finding a quality quction car means covering lots of auctions, and having lots of patience. trying to make it happen on cue is not a good plan.

[funkymonkey]

i'd suggest mark hocking, but I'm not sure if he'd be willing to come up to the tokyo area to accompany you. send him an email and try your luck I guess. As Richard posted above, they can waste all day with one person and make a commission on one car, or they can make money on multiple cars by sticking to routine... so finding one to help you can be a bit tricky.

If you're simply after buying a car thru dealers in japan, I'm sure one of our forum members in japan like Laurence or Streeter could help you do some negotiation.

[Beer Baron]

yeah well mark or anyone else for that matter I would say will not be keen on doing a guided tour for nothing. They generally charge 150,000 JPY per car, but that's only if you actually buy one. and considering they would be putting in more work, why would they do it for the same money? makes no sense. add to that the very high chance of you not finding a car you want (remember all auctions only run once a week, so if your chosen auction has no car you like you have to wait another week to try again). also mark lives as far south as you can get from tokyo so you've got bugger all chance of him coming to tokyo to show you around auctions for nothing. I don't think he will be keen on a 6 and a half hour shinkansen trip (each way) to show you around. or a 2 hour flight each way.

I don't mean to be harsh, but it's good to have some reality here. If you want to buy 5 cars, and you're not picky on colour, spec or quality then sure an exporter may help you and try and get at least 3 or 4 cars for you in one day, at one auction. but apart from that you are making things hard on yourself.

My advice. go to japan by all means. have fun. it's an amazing place. you may be able to find someone willing to let you tag along to an auction but I can't think of anyone suitable in tokyo that would be willing to do it. trekking around huge auction yards loses any fun factor after about 3 hours. after that it just seems like hard work (beleive me, I've been to a few over the years).

trying to organise someone to trek around with you, translate for you and buy a car for you at 3 days notice is not going to happen. and there are much more fun and productive things to do in japan anyway.

[changi]

well unless you are a member (ie dealer) of an auction house in japan you can't go in to view cars of any grade. be advised that any big auction shows thousands of cars a day. to see cars that you are interested in you ned to be able to use their terminals (again need access), then find a car of interest, note down the lot number. then use another lookup with that lot number to find where in the many yards it's located, and also note down where in the order it is to get an approximate time it will come up for auction. then you have to figure out the yards, get a shuttle/walk/run to approximately where it is, then search around for it. inspect it (you can't drive it anywhere), then get back to the auction room in time, then bid (again you can't bid unless you are a member/licenced buyer). even for dedicated and experienced car buyers it can take a month or more of physically attending 3 or 4 auctions a week (and more on-line) to find a specific car (ie grade 4B+, 32 GTR, late model). to be honest your first time in a japanese auction you will spend 80% of the day running around trying to find cars etc and most probably wont find anything worth bidding on. not many buyers will be willing to take you and hold your hand as you will just slow them down and they often have a lot of cars to get through for a lot of customers.

this pretty much limits you to car dealers in japan. and most dealers get their stock from auctions. so you are now paying another middle man. and you need a dealer that speaks excellent english and that you trust to organise de-reg, and get the car safely to the port, and get you the BL in a timely fashion etc. all big leaps of faith if you have never dealt with them before and you can't speak/read/write japanese yourself.

For a first timer with limited time (say 2 weeks) in japan you have little chance of buying a car at auction that suits you. and little chance of buying one at all.

try and see if any of the import agents in aus will hook you up with a trustworthy exporter and they may be willing to take you out to look at cars, but I doubt it. Finding a quality quction car means covering lots of auctions, and having lots of patience. trying to make it happen on cue is not a good plan.

thanks for that. you're a hard man! , there'splenty of things to do over there as you say. my plan may not be a good one but it's a start and I have plenty of time, so let's see where it finishes up.

[Beer Baron]

haha, yeah I can come across a little harsh. but don't mean to be if you have lots of time over there (like a month or two) then you are in with a shot for sure.

but without an actual friend there to help you will have to rely on a stangers generosity to do you this favour (not impossible at all).

honestly though, I think the best advice is find an exporter you can trust, and just let them do their thing in inspecting cars for you (whilst you are sitting comfortably in aus). I mean the good ones will have been inspecting maybe 30 cars a week for years and years. so no offence intended but they will be much better at picking the good cars from the bad than you (or me for that matter). so there is no need to be looking over their shoulder while they do it.

[changi]

haha, yeah I can come across a little harsh. but don't mean to be if you have lots of time over there (like a month or two) then you are in with a shot for sure.

but without an actual friend there to help you will have to rely on a stangers generosity to do you this favour (not impossible at all).

honestly though, I think the best advice is find an exporter you can trust, and just let them do their thing in inspecting cars for you (whilst you are sitting comfortably in aus). I mean the good ones will have been inspecting maybe 30 cars a week for years and years. so no offence intended but they will be much better at picking the good cars from the bad than you (or me for that matter). so there is no need to be looking over their shoulder while they do it.

yep; I know more about the process now than I did before reading your posts: thanks for that. I've dug up a half dozen exporters contact info so will start there. I bought my last GTR direct from an importer [no longer in business]. I will let you know how things go.

[1400r]

contact Victor at www.kobecars.com

he's back in Japan from Jan 10th and Im sure he would be happy to help you

by touring you throught the rated number one auction house in Japan

his set fob price is a set 100,000 yen above exact auction price.

his number in japan is 090-1147 7344

genuine nice honest guy, hard to find in this industry

[Cyclops]

Hey Changi ..... how did it turn out, I see in another thread that you found a car.  

Care to share how you found it and a bit about the whole experience.

[changi]

Hey Changi ..... how did it turn out, I see in another thread that you found a car.  

Care to share how you found it and a bit about the whole experience.

hi,

after having an empty space where my stolen GTR used to sit for 6 months, I now have my new 1992 R32 GTR snuggly parked. now complied, registerd and heavily "insured", just in case another lowlife decides he needs the car more than I!!.

I know there are plenty of 'bad experience' stories of individuals importing a car themselves, but I'm glad went through the exercise. firstly, it was a bit of fun and secondly, and more importantly, I got the car that I wanted at a fair price, and a better price than I could have got, if I had gone through a dealer.

here are some details of the process I went through.

once I had decided to buy another GTR I started looking here in Aus for the car that met my requirements: >1992, midnight blue, less than 30000km [genuine], grade '4+' body, grade 'B+' interior; and finally, absolutely stock with no smash history. after hunting around for a month it became apparent that I would not get a car like this here for less than $35k; especially seeing as I wanted the midnigt blue colour.

it became clear [after getting good, often blunt [beer baron] advice from some knowledgable SAU forum posters] that I would have to do a fair bit of the searching myself. anyway i finished up flying to Japan where I met a guy [Grahame] from a company called Asian Way who I 'clicked' with. he helped with the auction sites to search. eventually, [2 months] the car that i now have in the garage came up. with Grahame's help I set an upper $$ limit for the car and was able to get buy it.

the import process went smoothly but not without concern for the security of the car, the system gives plenty of oportunity for damage/theft of parts etc.

luckily, I had no dramas.

compliancing was also painless/straight forward: done by Auto Import Compliance at Underwood in Brizzy; a good bunch of blokes and efficient.

Costs: [the subject dear to most hearts] in Au$s rounded off to nearest $100.

car auction price........18000 [JPY at 97}

Aaian Way................ 1000

Aus shipping agent,

GST, duty ................ 5000

compliance............... 2200

tyres, roadworthy,

re-gas A/C, rego....... 1500

Total: ............................. 27700. + 850 insurance [shannons]

I reckon this is a cheap car; it is in exceptional condition and drives like new. an optioned up Tiida costs more than this. also, I believe the good examples of the GTR will hold their value.

I'm not saying the way i did it is for everyone, but it worked out for me.

regards to all adventurous importers

[sh@un]

this seems like too much effort to me- did you get a "genuine" 30kkm car?

for that sort of money, you could have bought a comprehensively rebuilt 32 in Australia. but, if ur happy ....

[changi]

this seems like too much effort to me- did you get a "genuine" 30kkm car?

for that sort of money, you could have bought a comprehensively rebuilt 32 in Australia. but, if ur happy ....

I didn't want a rebuilt car and there are plenty of stories of good 'cheap' r32 here in Aus, but when you actually look at them; if they are cheap, they are rubbish. good, unmodded, low km [-30k km] are not easy to find and like I said, when I did, they were $35k-ish.

yes, this is a genuine mileage car. one owner with uninterupted service history [with receipts for each service]in original logbook.

it might seem like a long drawn out process but it's a bit of fun, and, if you are willing to wait, you can get the car you want rather than the one that is just sitting in the "CAR SALES" yard; which is rarely exactly what you want.

anyway, I guess it's horses for courses, in the end I'm happy enough.

I hope I didn't scare you off importing!?..

[Beer Baron]

haha, that is funny. I know Grahame King quite well. he is a lovely guy and I have spent time with him at various trips to japan over the years. Glad he could help you out. he is one of a few exporters that I know and trust.

sounds like you got a nice car, and the cost does not seem unreasonable to me. just like anywhere if you want the best of the best you have to be prepared to pay for it. sure there are lots of 1million yen 32 GTRs but the really special cars are all 1.5+ and some into the 2+ range.

[changi]

haha, that is funny. I know Grahame King quite well. he is a lovely guy and I have spent time with him at various trips to japan over the years. Glad he could help you out. he is one of a few exporters that I know and trust.

sounds like you got a nice car, and the cost does not seem unreasonable to me. just like anywhere if you want the best of the best you have to be prepared to pay for it. sure there are lots of 1million yen 32 GTRs but the really special cars are all 1.5+ and some into the 2+ range.

hi BB,

yep, Grahame is a genuine bloke and I was lucky to have met up with him. once he knew what I was looking for he latched on to it; the good thing about dealing with him is that there is never any pressure to rush into a deal, which really suited me.

I'm very happy with the car, great to have another but still miss the stolen one. 3m JPY is not that uncommon now for collectable r32 GTRs; Grahame said that the good ones are going into collections so prices are rising.

thanks again for your good advice when I was first thinking of going to Japan to hunt for a car.

regards