Monday 29 October 2012

Hurricane Sandy halts progress.


Well, everything seemed to be going OK. The money went through OK on last Saturday, and after a few problems with the paperwork the bill of sale and title were all complete by the end of last week. Transport of the car was scheduled to happen at the start of this week, all in readiness for a departure on Friday (the 2nd of November).

Well today that's all in question with the news of Hurricane Sandy's approach to the Eastern sea board and New York. As I writing this I'm hoping the car hasn't set off from Indiana on an open car transporter, straight into trouble! I'm pretty sure it hasn't, even If I've not had confirmation from the seller. What does worry me is what this means for its scheduled departure on Friday. If Sandy turns out to be half as bad as she's reputed to be then who knows what kind of state NY port will be in even if my scheduled car transporter manages to dock.

Don't get me wrong one car, even a DeLorean, pales into comparison next to people homes, jobs and lives. I can't imagine what people are going through waiting for the storm to hit, not knowing how bad its going to be. It really brings things into focus. But how typical, just when I thought I'd cracked it!

One things for sure, if it manages to weather the storm and make it back to the UK maybe I should give it the nickname of Sandy to remind me of it's brush with disaster!

Sunday 28 October 2012

Original 80's DeLorean Advert

Well it had to be done. Here is the original DeLorean advert back from the 1980's. Its great, and I love the "Live the Dream" slogan, but really, did they need all those seagulls? I know, gull wing doors, but they don't make for the most "exotic" of birds, plus they're likely to poop on the stainless and ruin it!

Driving the DeLorean DMC-12

Well, as my car is still waiting to cross the Atlantic I can't really tell you yet what its like to drive. But fear now, you can always count on  Youtube to turn up the good, and it has with a review of the driving experience by http://www.classiccarsdriven.com.


Thankfully their verdict is that the DMC-12 makes for a surprisingly good drivers car. Good handling and what they describe as "incredible range and versatility" from the PRV engine, with a relatively high first gear for those "getaways".

I wont spoil the whole review by repeating it here, but suffice to say its very positive, which flies in the face of what most people would believe. As I'm experiencing myself, tell someone you own a DeLorean and the usual myths come out. They are underpowered and unreliable, not to mention badly put together. Its nice to see that this review can put the point about being a "poor car to drive" to bed in some small way. As for "unreliable" and "badly put together". Well, considering so many of the original cars are still running thirty years later maybe this myth can also be laid to rest.

Mind you, my opinion might change once I get the car and it breaks down for the first time.

Friday 26 October 2012

Stage II DeLOrean for $17,500 USD?



Yes, that's right. While looking through the many DeLoreans still for sale I came across this one at DMC CA of all places.

http://dmccal.com/1981_delorean_dmc_12_vin_3452.html

"Vin# SCEDT26T5BDoo3452 Lic - 5ROMO86 Month and Year - Aug of 1981 Interior - Gray Transmission - Stick Miles - 92133 Color - Sliver Engine - Stage II PRV V-6 2.8L Will not last long at this price.. "

Your not joking at that price! Normally a DeLorean with the Stage II conversion would go for way more than this, 25K USD plus. So you have to ask what's wrong with this one.....

Well, the "92133 stick miles" is a little high for a DeLorean maybe, but then again the Stage II might mean this point is a little moot. Who knows. If I was still on the look-out for a car then I'd certainly be enquiring. The guys at DMC CA can certainly be trusted, and I'm sure they wouldn't sell a car that was in poor condition.

So, if your still on the hunt for a car then jump on this one....if it's not already gone!

Thursday 25 October 2012

Anyone want a BTTF II Police car? One on ebay.

Other Makes xxx

While searching ebay for DeLoreans again (its a habit I'm finding hard to kick, even though I've now purchased my own) what did I find but an original Back to the Future II police car featured in the movie.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Back-Future-II-Movie-Flying-Police-Car-prop-not-Lorean-/390486398778?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item5aeacd973a

Certainly cheaper than #10719, but without an engine a little less practical. Still. its small change at $1000 USD, well it is at the moment.

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Track my ship!


Well, the car has been booked on a transport and RoRo container ship The Turandot, leaving New York on the 2nd of November! Going to Google to find an image of the Turandot I found this very cool website which not only tells me everything about the ship, but also has a link to a live map showing its position! Don't you just love the Internet.

Link for the ship information sheet: http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/shipdetails.aspx?MMSI=566441000 (click on the position information to see its progress, or as below)

Link for the updated Ship progress page: http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/default.aspx?oldmmsi=566441000&zoom=10&olddate=lastknown

The last link also allows you to see all ships and their present position on the map. Its mad seeing how busy the English Chanel really is. Love it! This just appeals to my geeky nature. I'll be able to check the Turandot's progress each day, make sure she hasn't sunk yet!

Monday 22 October 2012

iPod dock


I think I've decided on one of the first mods I'm going to do on #10719. From what I've read the stock speaker are a little poor, being small and shorton bass. so, other than changing the speakers for something with a little more bass I need to upgrade the choice of audio sources. Tape and FM radio may have been cutting edge back in 1981 but it just doesn't cut the mustard these days.

However, I dont really want to change the original head unit on the car. Its a good unit and from what I know of audio amplifiers its the amp circuit inside is of a reasonable quality. I dont want to ruin the aesthtics of the car by sticking in a new head unit, well  not if I can help it. so I started to look around for any mods that can be done to allow an aux input to be added to the stock radio.

Todd over at project 1561 did this very interesting mod to his radio http://1561project.com/?page=ipod-craig While I like the idea I don't like the fact that with this mod you have to have a switch to turn off the radio reception, or constantly have to put up with interference picked up from the aerial. Looking at the wiring diagram for the radio I wondered if I could tap into the audio signal coming out of the tape section of the radio. This wouldn't suffer from the noise asspect of the above mod, plus allows for additional noise reduction and balance functions of the unit to be used with the aux input.

One big problem might be that the radio in #10719 looks like its an ASI unit rather than a Craige unit. However the above idea should still work, but I'll have to hunt down a wiring diagram for this radio.

Anyway, as I don't have #10719 in the country yet I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll return to this thread when she turns up and I have the actual radio to hand.

Watch this space!

It's on its way!...




Heard over the weekend from Rick that the funds have arrived successfully. Phew, that's a weight off my mind. Having never sent over thousands of pound to someone I've never met for a car I've never seen I was a little stressed to say the least! The second you see your hard earned cash disappear from your account and off into ether is a bit of a bum clenching moment.

However, both Jason and Rick who are selling #10719 seem like great guys, and having spoken to Jason on the phone quite a bit I wasn't worried at all about being ripped off. I'd done my homework on the forums and knew the car and both of the guys were legit and known to the community over in the US. If your looking for a D over in the states try to find out if its known over there, espcially through the http://www.dmctalk.org website. If you can get someone to check out the car on your behalf then even better.

Anyway, Rick has let me know that the car is all ready for transport, and she should be leaving for her long journey soon. According to my shipping agent she should land in the UK on the 25th of November. Thats a red letter day for the diary if there ever was one!

Import Tax. How much!?


There are two certainties in life. Death and taxes.

Now, if you compare the prices for DeLoreans in the States to what the cars go for here in the UK it seems obvious that its a much better bet to import. But before you go off and put in a winning bid there's the question of Tax to think about.

First look at the other costs involved in shipping the car back in my other posts. To get #10719 back to the UK I'm having to pay in the region of £1500 for transport, shipping and insurance. Then you have to look at the whole Tax issue.

Normally if you import a modern car to the UK you have to pay 10% import tax and a further 20% VAT on top of that. Ouch! That's a whole 30% on top of the purchase price, or £3,333 on a car purchased for £10K. But there are ways of reducing this.

The first is the 10% import tax. As the DeLorean was originally manufactured within the EU (Northern Ireland) it is exempt from this tax. You just need to make this very clear when putting the car through HMRC customs.

The second part, the 20% VAT, is a little trickier. Up until recently there was no getting out of it. You had to pay the full whack. However, now that the cars are (mostly) over thirty years old you can apply for this VAT to be reduced to 5% due to the car being " of historical importance". But be warned, applying for this "binding tariff" order as its called or BTI isn't straight forward. I spent over an hour on the phone to HMRC just trying to find out how to apply! You can fill out the forms yourself, but for me getting the shipping agent (who has the experience, not to mention the contacts in HMRC) to do it was well worth the £50 cost.

This "binding tariff" or BTI basically means that you apply to HMRC to make a judgement about the level of tax you will have to pay BEFORE you bring the car into the country. They then have to stick to that judgement. However, these rulings can't be applied for if the car has already been shipped, so as soon as you have agreed to purchase a car you need to start the process.

Even then when the car lands in this country the chances are that HMRC won't have made a decision yet (it takes them up to eight weeks for each application). So, acording to my agent anyway, HMRC will allow you to pay the 5% VAT, but will retain the title and bill of sale for the car until the final ruling is made. Yes, you heard right. Until they make the decision they keep the documents for the car, which means until they are happy you have paid in full you can't register the car.

Well, my ETA  for the car turning up in this country is the 25th of November, so I'll find out then what the process is, not to mention if I have a larger bill to pay in tax or not.....

Friday 19 October 2012

Paying for the car.

The joys of exchange rates and money transfers.

I'm starting to realise you why people pay more for a car already in the country! If its not hard enough having to find a car that fits your requirements,not to mention your pocket, then it seems to be even harder to avoid the banks creaming off some of this hard earned cash in the process.

Now that I have agreed a price for VIN#10719 I first had to pay the $1000 deposit to secure it. This was agreed to be done through PayPal. Now, don't get me wrong, PayPal can be very useful. Its great when you buy something on ebay, click on the PayPal button, and hay presto it's all done! But, as anyone who's has been on the other side of that equation knows the charges that PayPal places on transfers can seem steep, especially when your sending over $1000, not to mention more than that. PayPal will charge the person receiving the money between 1-3% of the total. That's after taking a slice of that money by providing a greatly reduced pound to dollar exchange rate. For example, when I sent over my £1000 deposit the exchange rate was 1.6 pound to the dollar, but PayPal's rate was a measly 1.55. So through Paypal I paid £645 for $1000, whereas the actual pound to dollar rate would have been more like £625. That's £20 fees straight away! Add another 1-3% on top of that paid by the receiver of the cash, another £10-30, and you could be looking at £50 to PayPal. Not cheap.

When it comes to paying the rest of the money it gets even worse. Most banks again have terrible exchange rates for their customers. My bank, Lloyds TSB here in the UK, offered a dreadful 1.54 dollars to the pound! If I was sending over £10,000 to the USA that would be a charge of £600 compared with the actual market rate of 1.6 dollars to the pound. They even have the nerve to charge £17.50 for the pleasure if you do it online, and £35 if you do it in branch or on the phone! They should be wearing a mask as that's daylight robbery!

So, whats the solution? Well, don't use your bank or PayPal for a start. PayPal is good for a deposit. Its quick and easy, and if you use a credit card your probably covered for the total amount if it all goes tits-up (but check with your individual card provider, not all are the same). Remember your sending a big lump of cash over to pay for a car you've never seen, and to a seller you don't know. Madness in any other circumstances. To send the rest of the cash look around for a good rat of exchange. Plenty of companies specialise in this type of thing and give FAR better rates. Sites like http://www.sendmoneyhome.co.uk/ are really useful to compare money transfer companies. I used http://www.torfx.com. It was quick and easy to open an account online, and a dealer called me directly back to discuss my needs. He guided me through the process before offering me 1.5982 dollars to the pound. That's £499 cheaper than Lloyds TSB (with the online fee added) on £10,000.

Finally, the time taken to do the transfer. Lloyds TSB quoted at least 4 days to transfer the money. TorFX did it in just over 48 hours. Many sellers request payment in full within seven days, so the time delay incurred by using a bank can ruin everything.

In short, shop around, its worth it. The money saved will pay for more parts when the car finally gets over here.

Thursday 18 October 2012

How to ship a car back to the UK or EU



Now that the deal has been done the fun really begins.

Like most people I imagine I've never imported anything from another country, less alone a two tonne car! Sure, I've purchased things in Europe and the US before and had them sent over to the UK, but from the beginning I realised getting #10719 back was going to be a bit more of a challenge.

First of all was the shipping. I needed to get the car from Indiana where she was being sold all the way to the nearest port, New York. Some 800 miles. Not a walk in the park. Then I needed to get it over to the UK. Where to start?

By far the best two places I found for information of the process are the two owners clubs here in the UK, http://www.deloreans.co.uk and http://www.deloreaneurotec.co.uk. These two websites offer some great guides to both buying a DeLorean and getting it back to blighty, not to mention a wealth of advise from the wonderful forum members. PJ Grady, a specialist for DeLorean sales and repairs here in the UK, has a very informative step by step guide to importing a DeLorean and getting it registered here in the UK http://www.pjgrady.co.uk//GenericContent.aspx?PageType=Useful_Info&ShowContent=Delorean_Imports.html

However you do it you'll need a shipping agent. Even before I committed to buying #10719 I'd obtain quotes for both east and west coast shipping to the UK. East cost is the quickest and cheapest of the two, with shipping from this side of the states coming in at about the £700 mark. Some of the shipping agents quote for the charges for shipping and port/handling fees separately, some as an inclusive service. Either way expect to pay £150 to £200 on top of the cost of the basic shipping cost for them to handle everything. However, after looking into all the red tape involved i'd say it was more than worth it.

Some good companies to look out for are Transglobal Logistics ltd (Tel: +44 (0) 117 938 1919) and Kingstown Shipping http://www.kingstownshipping.co.uk. In the end I decided to go with Hill Shipping http://hillshipping.blogspot.co.uk. Jamie Hill came in with a very competitive quote, backed up with an impressive portfolio of previous imports, not to mention quite a few recommendations from others on the forums. So far he's been great at guiding me through the process, answering all me emails and questions. The HMRC and Tax requirement alone can be very daunting to a first time car importer, but more of that later...

In the meantime the money has gone off and I'm just waiting for the green light to start the whole shipping process. Watch this space to see how it goes!

Wednesday 17 October 2012

Buying VIN# 10719



A 1982 Delorean for sale.....
Grey interior, manual, refurbished wheel and fuel system. New leather seats covers and excellent interior. Electrical system updated with new fuses and relays and all door/trunk struts replaced. Window motors replaced. New tires installed and the brakes have been serviced with new rotors and pads.......

Above is the original ebay listing for VIN#10719, including just some of the many refurbishments and repairs made by the owner. I knew as soon as I clicked the link this was the car for me. All the major points had been sorted out and, although there is always room to stamp your own identity on a DeLorean, many of the key points had been done. It had all the features I wanted in a D.

  • Manual gearbox (a must really).
  • Grey interior (even though I toyed with the idea of a black interior grey just looks better in my mind).
  • Later smooth hood, without groves and gas flap and with the DeLorean logo.
  • An ariel in the  rear quarter grill. Much better than the one in the wind shield/screen, and not as unsightly as the wing mounted versions.
  • Silver, later version wheels. I think the first model grey wheel are nice, but there's something about the silver finish for me.
  • Original wide dealer stripe. Its an acquired taste, but I love it!
But, the seller was looking for mainly a US buyer....

so, I messaged the seller to see if he had any pics of the frame, plus could answer any more questions. to my surprise he got right back to me within minutes! Now bare in mind that this is gone 11pm at night here in the UK. I went back to him saying it all looked good and would be in contact.

Next day, five minutes before the end of my lunch, I received a reply from the seller.




"It sounds like you would appreciate this car as it is an extremely nice one. We turned down an offer this evening for ($1000 below my max) and I don't expect the auction to run it's full course. Please feel free to call or email me if you have any more questions, would like additional photographs, or any other points to discuss.

Happy cruising!"
 



I was frantic. I wanted this car, and to have it snatched away so quickly would be a nightmare! So, quickly I emailed him back with my final offer. Then started a VERY long afternoon which dragged and dragged. Would he take the offer? A car in this condition would normally go for more money. Maybe I should have gone with more?
The end of the day couldn't come soon enough. When it did I flew back home. I had decided on one thing. I'd give the guy a call. Much better to talk in person. That way he'd understand I was a serious bidder. Maybe he would see that an international buyer wasn't such a bad thing. No visits to look at the car for a start! I couldn't afford the airfare for one thing.
So, just as I sat down to make the car an email came in....
"I am glad you decided to take it, I know you will not be disappointed."
The car was mine! All I had to do was send over a deposit for $1000 via PayPal to secure the car and |He'd take the auction down. After thinking about it for so long I couldn't believe id actually brought my very own DeLorean. The smile on my face was like a kid on Christmas morning.
I rang the seller anyway, and had a great chat about the car. Seems he was selling for his best friend, and it had been cared for very much. things were looking great. Now all I had to do was sort out how to get my dream car back here to the UK.

Where to find the perfect DeLorean for you.



Like many people my age I've loved the DeLorean DMC-12 since the tender age of eleven, right about the time the Back to the Future films came out. I can remember being blown away that such a cool car could have been made in the UK. That's the UK, home of the Austin Allego and Relient Robin! Who would have thought.

Back to the future, well to the present, and I finally decide to start making one of my childhood dreams a reality. I'd always presumed I'd need to win the lottery to own one of these iconic machines, but after doing my research it turns out they aren't as expensive as I once imagined. Don't get me wrong, they aren't cheap, but they are around the cost of an average family car, and this is a far from average motor.

In the UK you can expect to pay £18K for a reasonable examples, with good examples coming in at over £20K. That's because they come up for sale so rarely anywhere in the UK, and when they do they tend to be in reasonable condition. However, the US is a different matter. At any one time there will be a good few spread over the states. Many can be found on ebay, but not all. To find those other examples you need to turn to some specialist forums and sites.

In the UK there are two great sites for DeLorean owners and people thinking about taking the plunge. http://www.deloreans.co.uk and http://www.deloreaneurotec.co.uk/. Both are a great source for anything DeLorean related and the community is second to non on offering help and advice to anyone thinking of buying one of these classic cars.

In the states one of the best places for anything delorean related is http://www.dmctalk.org.
With information on anything to do with the mark, not to mention a similarly friendly and helpful crowd, it also offers a section just for cars being sold or sought.

Finally one of the best links has to be a facebook page created by a guy in the states looking for a DeLorean. http://www.facebook.com/DeloreansForSale On it you can find just about every car in the US up for sale. A truly amazing resource (thanks Dangermouse over on the www.deloreans.co.uk forum for pointing me in its direction). Its where I found what will hopefully be my car someday soon...