Not Range Rovers, they are too new (and complex). It started about 6 or 7 years ago in conjunction with a couple of friends in France as they also drive on the right so LHD was ideal. One (the one who has just acquired a P38) was visiting his son who was working in LA and noticed that old 50's and 60's Yanks could be bought very cheaply. He called the other friend in France to ask how easy it would be to register a car from the US in France. It is impossible as the French insist on an EU Certificate of Conformity which none of them have as they are too old and the scheme didn't start until the early 90's (and the cars were never destined for the EU in the first place). So he phoned me and asked the same question. Here, all that is needed to register a car is that it passes our MoT test and the older the car, the less stringent the test. There is no emissions test, seatbelt check, etc at all for anything before a certain year and pre-1964 they can retain the white front, red rear indicators and not have to have them changed for amber ones. So, yes, no problem at all to register them here. So he bought a 1957 Lincoln and arranged for it to be shipped to the UK.
I picked it up from the docks a few weeks later, did enough to get it to pass the MoT test (in that case it needed two new track rod ends and the windscreen washers made to work) and registered it in the UK. With UK registration it is fairly straightforward to transfer to French registration or any other EU country for that matter (at the moment, what will happen when we are no longer EU we don't know yet). He then flew over, bought a machine polisher and did what he does best (cosmetics) and drove it back to the south of France. Once there it was realised that it was worth over twice what he had paid for it so the business side of it started. His son would find the cars, ship them to me in the UK, I would get them through the MoT and registered, put them on a trailer behind the P38 and take them to France (which is how I came to be running a P38 in the first place). Once there they got the cosmetics done and were then sold to France, Germany, Holland, Monaco, Italy or wherever.
After about 8 or 9 big old Yanks, his son was offered a 1958 Austin Healey so we bought that and since then it has been all older European stuff like Healeys, E Type Jags, Triumph TRs, a couple of Volvo P1800s (rocketing in value over here but still cheap in the US) and an early SL Merc. There's also been a few Harleys and Triumph Bonnevilles just to fill a bit of container space. The old stuff is easy enough to work on, cars from the dry States don't have any rust but we learnt that nothing appears to be done properly in the US after buying a couple of 'fully restored' cars and finding they needed stripping totally and doing properly. Hence I wouldn't even consider buying something as complex as a P38 from the States. As well as everything else that that would need doing to a P38, everything that had already been done would need to be done again too!
It's all good fun, lets me play with old cars and gives me an excuse to do the odd 2,000 mile round trip with a few days in the South of France in the middle but it doesn't always go according to plan. In July last year I picked up a series 3, V12 E Type roadster from the docks. Got it MoT'd and registered here and then trailered it to France in the middle of August. It had the big ugly rubber bumpers replaced with European spec ones, given a good polish and was then advertised throughout Europe for sale. It was bought by a man that lives no more than 2 miles from me so in December I had to go down again to bring the thing back! It did more miles on a trailer behind my P38 in 5 months than it had under it's own power in the last 5 years.
Peterborough, Cambs
- '93 Range Rover Classic 4.2 LSE, sold
- '97 Range Rover 4.0SE, in Oxford Blue with a sort of grey/blue leather interior sold as two is plenty.....
- '96 4.6HSE Ascot - now sold
- '98 4.0SE in Rioja Red
'98 Ex-Greater Manchester Police motorway patrol car, Range Rover P38 4.0, in Chawton white - the everyday car
All running perfectly on LPG
- Proud to be a member of the YCHJCYA2PDTHFH club.