Importing a project classic car
 

Hello,

New to the forum, i have recently moved to Portugal with my family, the south and enjoying it a lot!

I have a question, regarding restoration project cars.

I am looking at a 1950’s Landorver, its a California car ( so left hand drive) and is complete, but need renovation to be road legal.

I am pretty familiar with a straight import of a car, but not with a project car?

The seller can provide me with an invoice, the cars title and UK NoVA showing tax paid in UK and. Heritage certificate fo dating etc.

Is this possible? I’m thinking is i ship it to Portugal, restore it and then officially import it, pay the taxes etc?

kind regards and appreciate any thoughts.

Al

Re: Importing a project classic car
 

I don't have any personal experience of what you describe but some thoughts come to mind. As the Land Rover is a North American market 'export' model, and is already in the UK, would it be less of a risk to get it restored to a level that it could pass the UK BIVA test before importing to Portugal? I realise that a BIVA pass doesn't guarantee EU permanent import acceptance, but it does enable the vehicle to be road legal in the UK and then road legal under UN visiting vehicle treaty in Portugal as a non permanent import. This may be useful to you should permanent import be denied as a project vehicle. At that point you would then be importing a road legal British registered LHD classic car.

Re: Importing a project classic car
 

Thank you for the reply, I had not heard of the Biva test, you may be into something. It is quite a long way off being in a state to test, it is a rolling project, with a starting engine, but it ends about there! May we’ll be worth getting a workshop to get it barely road legal for this.

is it possible to have it transported as a project, and not register until it’s ready? I seem to remember doing something similar with a old American ford into the UK? Hmm.

I think you may we’ll be right though.

Re: Importing a project classic car
 

You don't need to do any paperwork to bring in into the Portugal from the UK; you only need paperwork to drive it on public roads.
Until the end of the year, when the brexit rules bite.
There is no import duty or import restrictions until then.
The bureaucracy and taxes are for registration and use on public roads. While it stays on private property registration is not required.

There are registration tax exemptions for classic vehicles, I don't know the details but I'm pretty sure they'll work for you when your landrover is ready to roll on the road again,

Re: Importing a project classic car
 

As long as the Land Rover is the same as it came out of the box. I've enquired to an agency in Portugal and that is what they stated. We can't get a COC for our vehicle, they wren't issuing them at that time.

Re: Importing a project classic car
 

I thought I should add;
If you do all that and then go to register your vehicle in [say] 2022, you might get hit with an import tax demand.
After 2020 is over, UK vehicles will have to pay import tax as well as registration tax.
You'd have to prove the object entered Portugal before the import tax came into force.

Best ask at PT customs [Aflendega] and get the reply on paper.

Re: Importing a project classic car
 

If you find that registering the Land Rover in Portugal before or after December 2020 is not possible, you might want to learn more about the International treaties that govern visiting foreign registered vehicles and their drivers. There are two main treaties that apply to countries requiring International Driving Permits for foreign license holders. Portugal is signed up to the 1968 Vienna Convention. Usually (but not always) the 1949 Geneva Convention applies where the 1968 treaty doesn't.

A signatory country cannot apply a local law that removes the rights provided to a visitor by these treaties. I have used this knowledge in the past for my benefit when being pulled over by local law enforcement. It helps if you have the relevant UN treaty text in the local language printed on paper, and contact numbers for your nation's embassy so that you can use your one phone call to call them.

Other useful treaties for 'explorers' are the UN's 1954 New York Customs Treaty, UN's 1990 Istanbul Treaty,

https://treaties.un.org/Pages/Partic...aspx?clang=_en

Re: Importing a project classic car
 

Alternatively, if you still have US title documents from California DMV or your Land Rover's NHTSA paperwork, you will likely be able to re-import the Land Rover back to California after it is restored. I can't remember if re-importing to the same state requires import duty to be paid, but I am fairly certain it will be charged if the port of entry is in a different state to the original registration (but I could be wrong as I haven't done it myself). A port of entry can be inland for container freight like Salt Lake City in Utah. Your shipping agent just needs to know what port of entry that you want it to be checked by US Customs & Border Patrol and the container will go by rail or road at your expense to that port to be unloaded.