How much does it cost to import a car from Japan?

You can get a car for as low as $3,000 with the upper limit hovering around $18,000 or so. It all depends on the model, mileage and emission factors. I looked into online auction data (Yahoo and others) and found these bid prices for Japanese cars: 1994 Nissan Gloria Gran Turismo @ 190,000 yen (US$1,757) 1999 Toyota Altezza RS200 Z-Edition @ 580,000 yen (US$5,372) 1994 Mazda RX7 Type R @ 320,000 yen (US$2,964) 1997 Subaru Legacy GTB @ 120,000 yen (US$1,112) 1993 Alpha Romeo 155 T-Spark @ 140,000 yen (US$1,297) 2000 Daihatsu Mira Gino @ 220,000 yen (US$2,038) The site below has more on this with specifics and details on how to import Japanese cars to the USA, Canada, Australia and UK. Check it out.

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/import/ If it's over 25 years old, you only have to pay to ship it, and possibly some import duties (on an old car, it shouldn't be much). Then you've got to sort things out with your state's DMV, which could be easy, or could be a pain in the ***, depending where you live. If it's under 25 years old, you pretty much can't do it. The only exceptions are: If it's rare (fewer than 500 made) and historically or technologically significant. Then you can import it for "show and display." If it is identical to a US model apart from MAYBE the engine or transmission. (Example: BMW 316 from years where the smallest engine was the 1.8 liter) You would need documentation to prove this. You want to crash test it and provide all the engineering data to get the car certified yourself. Or you get sufficient documentation from the manufacturer to prove to the satisfaction of the government that it meets US standards. Hahaha...good luck. IIRC, it'll cost you around 2-3000 dollars to ship a car from a Japanese port to a US west-coast port. So if you're thinking of importing a Japanese classic, that's around what it'll run you. Otherwise, forget it. edit: You can forget all of those cars for the states, too, except MAYBE the Altezza and RX-7, and even those are doubtful, being RHD.