General Question

malthauser's avatar

What are the real costs of shipping a car to the US from Germany(Europe)?

Asked by malthauser (58points) May 4th, 2010

I am relocating to San Francisco from Cologne, Germany pretty soon and I am considering bringing our 1975 BMW 1502(really great condition). I have checked the costs of shipping to NYC and then we are planning on driving from there, but I am nervous about costs when I get to the US(taxes, updates, etc.).

Anyone done this process already? If so, what went well and what did not?

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10 Answers

Tropical_Willie's avatar

@malthauser
Check with the local BMW dealers in Germany ( or the BMW owners club ), you may not be able to import the car.

They would call it a “gray car” it needs to have approved equipment including windshield, catalytic exhaust system, ETC.

By the way nice “handle” —— LOL

malthauser's avatar

thanks for the feedback, i’ll look into that as well. i have heard that this car might grandfather those rules because of the age, but i’ll check again.

bob_'s avatar

Um, is there a Germany other than the one in Europe?

malthauser's avatar

I was trying to expand the search results to people that may have done this from the Netherlands, France, Spain, etc.

bob_'s avatar

@malthauser Oooh, right. Didn’t think of that. Entschuldigung!

ragingloli's avatar

@bob_ there are towns in the US named “Germany”. Personally I think we should sue these towns for copyright infringement.

bob_'s avatar

@ragingloli Well, I don’t know. Did you guys make sure to copyright “Germany”, not just “Deutschland”?

Vincentt's avatar

@ragingloli Ah, I saw a promotional movie from scientology which said they were located in <city 1, city 2, city 3>, ... and Germany, and we were wondering if this was just a categorical mistake, but it was just a clever trick to pretend they were located nearby as well ;-)

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