Recent model Mustangs

[SigENeaT]

Hi gang,
I was chatting with a mate of mine today who imports cars from Japan (rarer stuff) for a living and we got talking about recent model (ie, last 5 years) muscle cars.

Anywho, long story short we got interested in what sort of demand there might be for importing current/recent model American muscle cars (Camaros, Corvettes, Mustangs etc) for sale in Western Australia.
Are there any places which already import these cars on a regular scale? ie, they source the cars and sale themselves as opposed to complying cars which customers seek out.
Is it likely that the crazy prices you have to pay (luxury car tax, lhd -> rhd conversion etc) are the only reason why there arent many places already doing this?

Are there any gurus who may have some insight in to the economics with importing current/recent models?

[Frank70]

Importing is the easy part I imagine - converting to RHD is the hard (expensive) part.

Mustang Motorsport here in Melb charge about $30k to convert a current model Mustang to RHD.
But they do a great job - you would not know it was not from the factory.

That unfortunately coupled with the fact that you cant keep them LHD makes it much less attractive.

Otherwise I imagine the demand would be huge.

Cheers,
Frank.

[philb]

If they are coming from Japan I think they may already be RHD.
You will have to replace seat belts and get them emissions tested I know for sure but there may be more.

[Sean piquet]

Most cars of the type referred to will still be in LHD.

I suggest he should  read the published federal regulations which cover LHD late model imports.  If imported these cars have to be converted and this can only be done by federally approved workshops for the specific brand and model concerned. He will then have to deal with a  RHD conversion workshop on the import in order to secure import approval and so he also needs to talk to one of these businesses first.

He will not be able to import a  particular model in LHD if there is no workshop holding approval for conversion for that specific model.  

For late model LHD cars it's heavily regulated and expensive with the conversion costs.

[SigENeaT]

Thanks for the replies.
From what i understand he would be going to set himself up to be able to complete the whole process of legally importing, re-engineering and complying American landed cars, however there is no way of understanding what sort of demand there might be as no one in WA is doing this at the moment.