6G Celicas Forums

daaaaaaaamn,,,,,,,,,,,,,, this can't be trueee!,,,,,,,,,,,,
there must be a way,,, if i have seen hondas del sol, skylines and supras here in the states,,, there must be a way,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

There is always a way if you have enough money.

Just take that example in the first few posts, the guy registered it as a kit car.

This post has been edited by SwissFerdi: Jul 24, 2009 - 1:04 AM

what things can you do if it is registered as a kit car?

I'm interested. But I want a LHD GT4... What countries had LHD GT4s? I know there were a few. How much would it cost me to import one? And could I even register it?

I believe parts of europe but not UK

Hyundai? HAH HAH HAH, are you serious?! Please tell me you are joking..... Hyundai?! Might as well wait until Geo Metro puts a jet engine in their car and go buy that.... P.O.S. car with a turbo, because that's always the best solution. pppffftttt......

well, having not driven a Genesis myself, I can't say for sure how it drives. But its definately in a different class than the GT-4, and much more easily attainable in the states. The OP said he was shopping for a 370Z and since these two and the mustang GT are all in the same class, I simply pointed it out as an option to him.

I've read quite a bit about it and everyone has good things to say. The only exception being the somewhat squishy feel of the manual transmission. Trust me, I would normally avoid Hyundia's at all costs, but they seem to have their stuff together for this one. Maybe by 2011 or 2012 they'll have all of the potential bugs worked out and this will end up being a very solid car.

hyundai had no history of building performance cars or participating in racing events, but the Genesis is their first true sports car. hyundai reliability is probably one of the top 5 right now so i wouldn't call them cheap (unlike their cars in the 90s where they really made poor quality cars). HKS and a few other tuning companies have already begun production with Genesis aftermarket performance parts. I just hope hyundai keeps this up so they can compete with the japanese makers like Nissan, Honda, and Toyota especially and relive the 90s by building high performance cars all over again.

I believe they have a rally car or had one at one point but im pretty sure they did. i would look into the subaru(my first choice) since I have a family i would also (and i know this is not a gt4, but hey you have the money) consider getting a cadillac cts-v and pay it monthly or a 05 STi. just my opinion.

This post has been edited by gomezjose26: Jul 24, 2009 - 7:33 PM

I see what you are saying, and we all got to start somewhere. I dream of the day of one day starting my own car line, but that would never happen for me in this life. Still fun to dream about though. I know it is a bad ass car (just from looking at it and from what I heard and what it has), but still........ I have a hard time debating if I should buy a Datsun 240z, just because of my love for all Toyota cars and just the Toyota name itself. Every car I love without a logo on it, just happens to be a Toyota. I just wanted another side project that is bad ass and something I can drop a motor in and be exempt from smog.... But that's getting off topic here and thread jacking.

Do you guys know that Hyundai is a big company that makes ocean-going vessels?

Hyundai's company profile...
"Hyundai Corporation is Korea's leading general trading house, providing export and import services with a wide variety of products ranging from ocean-going vessels, plants and machinery, automobiles, steel and chemical products, to electronic products and general commodities. Combining its 34 worldwide offices and prompt and extensive information-gathering capability with advanced trading techniques and financing ability, Hyundai Corporation produces an optimum solution to its customers' various requirements.

Development and investment in overseas energy resources including oil and LNG
projects, another long-standing business of Hyundai Corporation, has achieved
remarkable success. Recently, in an effort to diversify and improve its business portfolio, Hyundai Corporation has been keen to develop the business in the information and communication area such as LCD, PDP, mobile handsets and industrial resources fields.

Establishing Qingdao Hyundai Shipbuilding specialized in the small to mid sized vessels and located in Qingdao, China, Hyundai Corporation successfully entered the shipbuilding industry and added another high value added business into the portfolio. Now, based upon manufacturing business, Hyundai Corporation is taking a great leap forward to become a professional global trading, distribution/development firm."

I wouldn't call their cars P.O.S because they are more than qualified to make good QUALITY cars from goor QUALITY parts because of the company's history.
Toyota maybe a pioneer in car manufacturing because of their lean manufacturing which results to good quality products but their secrets are now out in the open. Books like "The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer" and "Toyota Production System" by Yasuhiro Monden are out in the market and I'm pretty sure all the engineers and upper management of other manufacturer's are using these as their guide to make more profit and make good quality products. I, personally read these books and am trying to inculcate all that I learned to my work, I work in an electronics manufacturing company by the way.

Has any of you driven a Hyundai Genesis? I personally haven't but I would call it P.O.S just because it's a Hyundai.

A Hyundai Elantra is faster than a U.S. Celica ST!!! LOL

I really like the Genesis...haven't driven it, but it looks pretty good (except for the stupid grill) and seems to do well for itself. Cheap performance is never a bad thing.

I just want to bring up one point. That point is simple so I will go straight to it.

Between 2001 and 2007 I have dreamt of owning a gt4 and yet settled on 3sgte swap. Now that I think about it... nobody has ever ever ever stopped my car and told me that my engine is not legal. Basically what I am trying to say is that unless your car looks like a weiner mobile there will not be too many people who will investigate your car. If you can figure out how to import a left hand drive gt4 into canada then by all means find the resources and import one. Buy a used 94-99 celica or condemn your own vehicle and drive it to canada. Swap license plates and drive imported gt4 to the states right across the border. Again nobody will stop you (pending that both celicas are same color). No there will not be a special person extraordinaire who will stop you and inspect the hell out of your celica. Having been across the border many times over driving rented vehicles I have never had people inspect my car for things other than narcotics in which sniffing dog would sniff sniff and move on to the other car. So... drive straight into your house and park the car. Either forget about your old car or if you are really attached to it fly back to canada and recover your old celica. Now this is the tricky part where you could get caught. If they process license plates and see that your plate went in and out and then out again they might stop you and raise a red flag so I would highly recommend just leaving your condemned celica right across the border. Better yet you can probably find a very happy car buyer who would drive your celica there if you settle on a very low price and explain to him or her why you want them to buy your vehicle.

You might be asking yourself a question of why would I recommend this... well yes yes I do have a swapped celica that runs on par with my co-worker's subaru impreza sti but while I have tons of fun driving it I do lack the joy of rally. I am watching the market really carefully and if subaru/toyota 2012 celica gt4 falls through then I will follow my original plan and import a celica and drive it down to florida.

For about a year I owned 2 celicas. Only one was registered. Both were diffent colors and I would just take license plate from one and use it to drive the other car then swap it back while other car was in the shop. Never once have I been stopped. Police have better things to do.

Morale of the story is that if you have a goal in mind then you should pursue it. Most of us here would love to own a gt4 but most of us also do not have $20K lying around. As some of us grow up we are more tempted to spend money but again college bills and mortgage do not make that experience any easier. I think as time goes by... what we really need to figure out is not how to import a gt4 into states but how to import it so that most of us could afford one (ie for around $5000).

Again as I said earlier on the first page lol. I know someone that could import one into the states and titile it for you. He said it could take up to 2 months to find one because he told me that it's actually a hard car to find in Jap. that's in good shape and that has less then 80,000 km because he will only import in quality cars so it doesn't hurt his busniess importing a car that might look nice but blow up in a couple day's. He told me that it would prob be in the range of 13,000 to 16,000 depending on how much he pay's for the car over there and how much the shipment is at that time. Again that's for shiping inspection and title work. LMK if your interested, and be serious if you are because you would have to have that kind of money up front. Unless you have great credit and can take out a personal loan because a bank wont give you the money for a car that old and an imported one if that.

Well that is exactly what we are trying to avoid mate. There is no point in spending 16K on a car that could be purchased cheaper. We just need to figure out how and where and when.

Well when you think about it it's not bad at all. Ok so you find a way to be able to get one into the states. Let's say you find one over there that has 120 km, and your just buying the car from the pic's and the guy's word, not even knowing if you get riped off. Ok so you get one for let's say 2,500 to 3,500 then it's going to cost you about 3,000 to ship it, and after that it's going to take you a while to find someone that could get the car titled and that can cost 2 to 4,000. So after all said and done your spending almost just as much as to letting a guy that's imported a lot of car's from Jap and has someone over there that finds one that's in great shape. So yes I would much rather spend from 2 to 3,000 more to know that I'm not going to get riped off and know that I getting a good car that's not going to need much at all except prob a good tune up, and when you think about it he told me that he's only making a couple grand for doing this for people and he's the one doing all the searching putting his money in for the wait for 2 to 3 months. If I wouldn't have gotten laid off a month ago I would deff invest into getting one, because also when you think about it, and I'm one of them. The 3sgte swap's. You pay 3 to 4,000 for a car that's in good shape and a stright body, you get th 3rd gen swap for about 3500 to 4000 shiped, then you can use your tranny if you have the GT model or sell off a few things and try and find a 3rd gen mr2 tranny witch will run you usually 1,200 and then you need gt-4 clutch cables 300 and axles made another couple hundred. Then you have to pay someone to do the swap or unless you can do it yourself. Or unless you try and do the awd conversion then put another couple grand on top of that. So see if I would have know I could have gotten one several year's ago before I done my swap. I would have def tried to import one then to have spent 13 to 14 grand on doing mine.

I feel the same way...I love toyotas. I am puertorican so it's in my blood.

Uhh..... Del Sols and Supras were sold in the US... I think I missed the point of your post

If I had $14,000 to spend, it would NOT be on a Celica, even if it was a true GT4. You can get a low end mkIV Supra to make a decent dd out of for that. Of course, that's NA and probably an auto although you do find a few manuals in that price range, but I'd have a Supra. My parents bought this Celica for me (I had to pay for half of it, so I'm not THAT spoiled. Only halfway )so that is the reason why it's worth another $5,000 to me to do the 3S-GTE swap. But if I had to pay the full price for my car plus another $5,000 for the swap, I'm not so sure that I'd be up for it. I love these cars like no other, but I tend to be pessimistic about spending money

You do have a point there mate.. spending 14K on a 15 year old car is not something that most people can afford to do. Most people would take that money and probably buy a 2-3 year old car and call it that. The reason why someone would want to buy a 15 year old car for 14K is because you would be buying an idea rather than just a car. Same reason why people buy Ferrari and Lamborghini cars. If I had 14K just lying around I would probably not spend it on supra. To have a fancy shmancy 1000hp supra you need to spend at least 40 grand on it on top of the sale price and probably another 40 for sound system, tv etc etc.

Sigh maybe we should all rob a bank or something. Rich people can get anything even the most improbable. Just the other day I heard on the radio that some guy from United Arab Emirates ordered a solid gold "pump" decorated with precious gems. Darn reach people.. why not donate that money to us to import a few thousand gt4s into the states.