Registering a US made car in France

[trainman]

Does any one know what problems I would have registering a right hand drive 1973 Corvette in France?

[AnOther]

Probably considerably less than if it were 11 years younger [;-)]

You need to go through the FFVE and the form for applying is HERE

Right hand drive is irrelevant so don't worry about that.

You might want to hang slack for a little while thought because changes are afoot amongst which the departmental driving restrictions are being lifted. Unfortunately these have been (yet again) until June I believe but don't quote me on that.

Good luck [:D]

[Anton Redman]

I agree with Ernie – Friends took 9 months getting a 2 year old jaguar purchased in USA through the DRIRE. First link is Nitro which is the French magazine which covers US cars. Might be worth doing a search to see if there is a French owners club. Second two links describe the process and costs for newer cars. The links are a little biased, as both are dealers who import US cars.

 

http://www.nitromag.fr/

 

http://www.americancarcity.fr/voitures-americaines/importation-voiture-americaine.us

 

http://www.passionvoitures.com/achat/3.htm

 

[glacier1]

Hi there,

Having imported 2 American vehicles, I can testify that it will take you anything between 4-6 months to register it.  I have been told that older vehicles (from the 60's and 70's) do not need much (if any) modification work, it's the new vehicles which are a problem.  I know of someone who imports a few Porche 911 from California and re-registers them here in Europe (having been initially made in Germany and imported to the USA).  For him, it has taken anything up to 1 year to register as there is always 1 document missing to finish the registration proccess.  For me, it has taken 6 months.  I have registered my jeep 2 days ago, no problem.  The Toyota FJ Cruiser will be registered in 1 months time.  I know of someone who can help you with documents if you want to PM me, he was cheaper than the rest of them mentioned above. 

If asked, would I do it again....I would have to say, no.  It's too time consuming and they do everything they can to work against you.  It's a sad fact, it can be done, but at cost in time and money.

I hope this helps :)

Dave

[Red Dwarf]

Trainman

We brought our 1978 Corvette with us when we moved here in 2004.  The process of "importing" was a breeze, despite the horror stories we had heard!   Yes, you will need to go through the FFVE as the car will need to be classified as a Vehicule de Collection.  The rules for VdC were due to be amended this year, taking the cut-off to vehicles over 30 years old.  But, it seems that this has been delayed and the cut-off remains at 25 years until June.   A form is available from FFVE to complete, and needs the various numbers from the car, VIN, Engine etc, plus model types etc.  I have all this in my GM Restoration Package, but should be available from NCRS etc if you don't have them.  (You can drop me a PM if you need any info on that).  The form is returned to FFVE and they will send you a fancy "illuminated" certificate stating that you car qualifies as a VdC.  You'll need to obtain the usual form to say that VAT has been paid (from the Hotel des Impots) and in our case that was simple... we completed the detail on the form ourselves!  But, it'll help if you have the your receipt for the car etc (Being something of an "anorak", I have every piece of paper ever associated with the car!)  You will also need to have the car CT'd.  This wasn't a problem for us, it may have been an old-car-friendly tester, but all was OK (make sure your handbrake is correctly adjusted and that you can show how many "clics" it must come up, which is way different from the usual of course!)  We also had put the original US lamps back in, so the dip the correct way.  Once you have the CT, and your VAT form you take the other usual stuff to the Prefecture, V5, receipt, driving license, etc and your credit card. 

The possession of the VdC certificate means that over half of the boxes on the Prefecture forms are ignored by their staff, making the process very quick.  We were in and out in 10 minutes, having been relieved of about 200 Euros, and armed with a new Carte Grise de Collection.   You last task will be to find someone to make up number plates of the right size, and for that i went back to England, but there are plenty of places advertising in magazines such as Nitro that will do "US size" plates.

There were some geographic restriction to using a VdC, free anywhere in your own (the registering) department and all immediate neighbouring departments.  The FFVE site is still showing that these restrictions were lifted at the beginning of the year (see here: http://www.ffve.org/content/view/81/2/ )  but I confess to now being a little confused as to whether this has happened yet.  In practice, it's hardly a big deal to fill in the forms if you do need to go beyond that range, which in our case was plenty big enough for normal fun trips.  The other advantage is CTs only being needed every 5 years, in stead of 2.  This is actually more strict, as until this year you only needed the initial CT to register the car!   Personally, I'm happy to have someone check my maintenance!

Finally, how long have you owned the car, where did you buy it, was it one of Tom Falconer's conversions, and where are you based in France?   And, are you a member of the Corvette Club France?

If you need any more detail, get in touch.