28 years with 9113601282

[kp.sfo]

Can't wait to read more, Jeff, what a wonderful intro!
I'd love to introduce my little 73.5T Targa to her big brother one day

[mobius911]

My timing perhaps could have been better in starting the thread; I'm doing a few last-minute tasks on the car prior to heading down to Monterey on Friday. I'm going to meet up and caravan down with Steve Silva, who is is driving his just-restored (and stunning) lime green 74 Carrera. We kind of look like a mobile fruit salad.

Back to the story... I had the pictures, a few conversations, and we put together a fill-in-the-blanks questionnaire on the car. As you'll see, the questions were pretty cursory. But after some back and forth and negotiation we agreed to a price and I committed to the purchase. I don't remember the exact purchase price, but it was an amazing bargain relative to U.S. market prices at the time. The exchange rate at the time was somewhere around 2.7 DM to the dollar so it was a decent deal for both sides.

I don't remember the exact process that was used to pay for the car. I imagine it was just the honor system and I paid the money on faith that Herr Obermaier would follow through, and he did. I'm sure the pros had well developed networks and much better systems for vetting the cars. I was pretty much winging it but it worked out fine.



I like the "international rust' typo. Never noticed that until now!

[merbesfield]

I imported several cars during that time period, Mercedes, but could only find one good Porsche to import. I think you got really lucky with that find.

Oh, and the "international" rust is a killer. thanks for sharing your story. Post up some current pics so we can be even more jealous.

[mobius911]

Can't wait to read more, Jeff, what a wonderful intro!
I'd love to introduce my little 73.5T Targa to her big brother one day

You're welcome to hook up with us on the drive down Friday. We plan to go to the Legends of the Autobahn, then check out some of the auctions, or at least the car preview areas at the auctions. I'll be at the Historics on Saturday, and Pebble Beach or something on Sunday (not doing the concours, but maybe just the Retroauto stuff outside). The car will be there all weekend.

[mobius911]

Now that the car was purchased I had to get it shipped over. Finding the car took about 6 months, so it was exhilarating to get this receipt and know that the car was finally on the way to its new home. This is the original shipping bill for the container ship, the MS Pacific Highway. I tried to find a photo of the ship, but the name is now in use on what is most likely a much newer hull.

[mobius911]

While I was waiting for the car to arrive I had a very important skill to master- driving a car with manual transmission! My friend Paul (he's the broker in the documents) was kind enough to let me learn in his car- although not his 911! So as we waited for my car to arrive I learned the skills of matching revs, being smooth with the clutch, and ultimately learning the fine arts of double-clutching and heel/toe downshifts. By the time the car arrived I was reasonably proficient, at least enough that I didn't destroy the gearbox.

I hope to pass these skills on to my own kids when they learn to drive. Sadly it's becoming a lost art in the U.S. and that's a real shame. I know PDK and other autostick type gearboxes are faster, and the computer can do a better job of blipping to match the revs, but for me it takes some of the involvement and "connectedness" out of driving.

[Bert]

Great story so far. My father imported a beautiful Mercedes Benz 280S from Germany in the late '70's, while we were on a family trip to Germany. He had no idea the hoops he had to jump through once the car arrived in California. It was a great car and I enjoyed sneaking it out of the garage as a high school student, when he was away on business.

I look forward to the rest of your story.

[mobius911]

The car finally arrived and I picked it up at the Port of Albany, NY. The car arrived as advertised, started right up, and ran "like a scalded jackrabbit". I did the usual maintenance stuff like oil change, tune-up, and valve adjustment. But the car was here, it was in my possession, and I was absolutely ecstatic.

Unfortunately there was still the "sausage making" part of the import process. Lots of paperwork, forms, and mailing stuff to the various bureaucracies. The car was released to me based on my posting of a bond in the value of the purchase price of the car. You can't just sneak the car in and hope no one notices; the government knows you brought in a car, and you are given 120 days to bring the car into compliance.

The DOT was reasonably good about providing forms and guidelines to complete the paperwork (see guidelines attachment and first page of report). Many of the features on the car were the same as 1973 911s sold in the U.S. But there were a number of areas where the cars were different: side impact protection, dual zone brake master cylinder with warning light, headlights, side markers, visible VIN plate, tire pressure tag, buzzer for leaving the key in the ignition, warning lights if you didn't put on your seatbelt, etc. Nothing really major, and most importantly absolutely nothing related to the engine or emissions.

I don't think I'm giving away any secrets by admitting that I didn't make most of the changes, or if I did they were only temporary. I think a new brake master cylinder was the only permanent change. Here's the first page of the report. It was something like 10 pages long (if anyone wants the whole thing let me know and I'll post a pdf).



I'm scratching my head as to why I used the oil cooler part number as the engine number...

While I stated on this page that all of the switches were in compliance, in fact the German delivery cars had no markings on the switches, either words or symbols. The only one that is marked is the hazard light. The DOT reserved the right to inspect the car to verify that it was brought into compliance. However, they were so overwhelmed with imports that they rarely did that so I didn't view this as too much of a risk.

Here are a few more documents for the curious or the insomniac. I've attached the general guidelines from the DOT, as well as the engineering calculations that were used for the door impact beams. My guess is that pretty much every 911 that came over had this firm's engineering calculations as part of their report.

[mobius911]

Great story so far. My father imported a beautiful Mercedes Benz 280S from Germany in the late '70's, while we were on a family trip to Germany. He had no idea the hoops he had to jump through once the car arrived in California. It was a great car and I enjoyed sneaking it out of the garage as a high school student, when he was away on business.

I look forward to the rest of your story.

You're absolutely right, and California added another layer because they had their own emission requirements. That ended up being a bit of a pain for me when I moved to San Francisco in 1990. I ended up keeping my NJ license and registration. That worked for a while, but eventually the computers got too good and I just had to pay the tickets for not being registered. Somewhere around 1998 my car was old enough that it no longer had any emission requirements so I was able to register it.

[mobius911]

Here's the letter that makes your heart skip a few beats: forfeit your bond and return your car!

If I remember correctly this letter was fairly common. The NHTSA was overwhelmed with compliance reports and couldn't process them within the 120 day period. U.S. Customs was responsible for ensuring that goods that entered the U.S. were there legally. The two departments didn't talk to each other, and once the 120 days expired and Customs didn't have the appropriate releases they wanted the car back.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]223036[/ATTACH

I don't remember exactly how I dealt with this, but a few letters and phone calls later it was worked out.