KNOCKED BACK

I felt for GH’s plight with the importation of his Eleanor Mustang (Knocked back in 60 seconds, Morley’s Workshop, October 2019).

I may be able to shed some light on the Departmental thinking from my time as Principal Engineer in that area up to 2008. Things may have changed since then and I know new changes are on the way which may alter things.

But the guiding principle in my time is that the pre-1989 ruling applied to vehicles manufactured, or substantially manufactured, before 1989.

At one end we have genuine vehicles never altered since birth, and at the other we have vehicles recreated utilising little more than the chassis plate of a pre-89 vehicle. The line has to be drawn somewhere and the dodgy work of a few trying to buck the system makes it almost impossible for the many tr ying to do the right thing.

To give you some idea I adjudicated on a case where a guy wanted to import a ‘genuine’ 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder. The first sign of trouble was the purchase price was at least one order of magnitude too low. He was adamant that he just got lucky! The second was the presence of a 17 digit VIN with a USA WMI pointing to wellknown firm freely advertising that it makes replicas.

Now, I’m sure GH is an honourable person but we know this is not a real Eleanor, but a Mustang to the same specs. When I read things like “I ordered construction of a restored Eleanor” and then what was specified to be in it, the alarm bells start to ring.

Any work done prior to importation which would require an engineer’s certificate if done here is going to cause problems. As with a restoration, how much of the original car remains, and how much is new old parts, new genuine parts and new remanufactured third party parts will have a big bearing on the outcome.

Before sending a car abroad for work to be done, or agreeing to buy a car which has been modified abroad, talk to the Department so you will know whether an import permit can be issued.

Another wrinkle to bear in mind, any car which is imported in RHD is probably not going to get registered if converted to LHD after importation regardless of the orientation when originally manufactured.

Lawrence Glynn

ED: Lawrence, your insider’s perspective provides a fresh and valuable contribution to our understanding of how the system operates.