Quote:
Originally Posted by whiterabbit
Has anyone taken their car to Europe to drive while on vacation? I am thinking of spending 6 months in Europe and would really enjoy taking my 911 rather than getting a boring rental car. Thinking of shipping from East coast to UK and then driving on US plates and buying European insurance to remain legal.
Anyone done this? Or am I crazy to even consider  |
You should probably look into the insurance first. I took my car to the UK 12 years ago, and happily insured it on US plates as a "temporary import" through GEICO's UK office. Entirely legal; so long as I kept my state tabs up to date, road-worthy vehicle, converted headlight lens to appropriate for traffic pattern etc.
Looked into it again a couple of years ago, they wouldn't touch it. Said their underwriters now insisted that only UK-registered vehicles could be insured.
Which left the dozen or so companies that'll insure an imported, non-UK registered vehicle against a VIN for 10 days (but no longer) - intended to be long enough to drive to a converter's workshop and onto an MOT testing station to get the paperwork necessary to register. No other scenarios were anticipated or catered for...
Now, if you can find a European insurer prepared to write a cover note for Europe, it should be trivial to get the required additional coverage for the UK - if not already included. UK was full of EU-registered cars when I was there last.
I think the stumbling block may be that the insurance companies want the VIN number - but if they had no record of it (e.g. 30 yo US VIN), they don't want to play...
So, there's all these laws saying it's perfectly fine to do this so long as you comply with a, b & c - but the reality is that finding someone prepared to write the insurance you need to do this legally is a major stumbling block...
Do please post what you find out...
As others have said; it's worth considerable effort to drive a 911 in its natural habitat - they were built for those roads...