🔧 BUILD My Quest for an R34 Skyline GT-R V-Spec

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General Information

Summary: this thread has been a progression of my hunt for a GTR in Japan, The first post here will serve as a summary of that progression with some hyperlinks to specific posts. Please feel free to join TCG if you are brought here to follow along and as I intend to do quite a bit with it in Japan before it is imported to the states in 2024.

So I'm starting this thread to document and discuss the process of finding and buying a R34 GTR. I think the value of these cars is only going to go up especially once they are fed legal to import. There are some grey market cars down here in Houston but I don't think it's worth the hassle to buy one only for it to be potentially seized later although there are quite a few down here currently. This leaves me with only a few options to import.

First is my criteria. Below is a general guideline of what I'm looking for but ultimately I can change a little on this if the value proposition is greater than the criteria of what I want in a car. For instance if I find a car meeting my spec for 140k lets say but then a rarer and nicer example pops up for 160k that I think will be more valuable later that will sway my decision potentially.

Acceptable criteria.

  • Year: 1999 or 2000 (Fed legal in 2024, 2025
  • Color: Bayside Blue
  • Mileage: Low miles preferred, but higher mileage considered if condition is well maintained
  • Trim: Vspec is preferred but would consider other higher trim packages.
  • Modifications: Stock is preferred but willing to consider bolt-ons, coilovers, wheels.
  • Condition: must be in top grade shape, I do not want a project car.
My budget is going to be a bit wide but I’m trying to target anywhere between $120k-$180k depending on what candidates become available. I also need to consider storage of the car in Japan which after discussing with TopRank is about $300/month for indoor storage and Garage Defend is appx 250/month. If I assume getting a 1999 this will be around $8-10k to store until it is ready for import. There are other fees, tariffs, shipping, that I’ll need to pay as well.

so what say you TCG? Has anyone gone through this process already or have recommendations? I’ve already reached out to Top Rank Imports as they seem to be the primary importer for these cars but willing to work with smaller well respected importers as well such as garage-defend.

Post Summary
  • it is worth mentioning as I went through this process I found that Doston at Garage Defend was going to be the primary contact to look at candidates and source only the best condition cars to buy. We spoke many times though out this process and watching his videos for years now I knew he would be the best person for me to work with. TopRank is starting to push back on finding cars and willing to store cars that are only in their inventory. By all means I think Toprank is a high caliber company but limited on finding the right car for me. Doston has a reputation of pushing back on cars/customers with questionable history or condition. I can respect that as there are cars people pay top dollar for that have major issues. Finding a respectable importer is key here to not being ripped off as they want to maintain a higher reputation in this space. Dare I say, selective on who they will work with. The history of this purchase is as important to the value of the car itself so I only want to work with someone that imports 100% by the book and only quality cars.
Here are candidates that we ultimately passed on.
  • First Candidate. TopRank Silver GTR Vspec. Although I liked this car and was able to work out a decent deal for it including the shipping and storage until 25 year legal, I ultimately wanted a bayside blue car and decided not to peruse this one. Although throughout this thread I went back and forth on possibly buying it, which I'm glad I did not settle on
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  • Second Candidate. GooNet Exchange car. I decided against this one ultimately as the dealer did not want to budge nor did he want to sell it outside of the country for export. The price of the car at just over 20 million yen ($176k) would have been the top of my budget and left very little room for storage or any modifications we would want to do with the car. The kicker as well is that it had a "repaired" history which could be anything minor or major but not much is known. Doston ultimately doesn't want to sell any questionable history on cars so he thought it would be best to pass which I agreed.
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  • Third Candidate. CarSesnor car 1. I had Doston chime in on this one. He knows the seller and he is trying to get more than my budget allowed. Doston thought it would be best to skip on it because 3 years is long enough of a wait and this car being a later 2000 would put me into early 2026 before I could get the car. He thinks if I were waiting out that long then maybe go toward a vspec2 car but thats an even longer wait. We passed on this one but it was a beauty and supposedly a S-Tune car from Nismo although we didn't look at it long enough to see if it was legit.
    • 1635518567644.png

  • Forth Candidate. Harlow Car 1 in UK. So I was told by Chris at Driver Motorsports that there are some really pristine cars in the UK that may be worth me looking at at Harlow. They had a very nice vspecII car that I liked alot but the color was just not what I wanted although I ran some numbers. Talking to Doston he sourced that very car for Harlow. Ultimatly its just not the color I want and the longer wait is not something I'd like to hold out for so I passed.
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  • Fifth Candidate. Garage Defend car 1. Not going to spend much time on this one but Doston had a guy ahead of me in line for a blue vspec so this got sold to a guy in Australia that same day. It was also a 2000 car so that much longer of a wait. The good news about this is that I moved to the number 1 position for the next blue vspec car he gets his hands on and gave them a deposit for the position.
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  • ​
  • Sixth Candidate. CarSensor car 2. Doston went to inspect this car and pressed back on buying it. It was once used as a circuit car and had been previously modified and reverted back to stock. He thought mechanically this could lead to some future headaches and also had some wear and light surface rust. He didn't want to have anything to do with it. Looks like a great car and the original listing on carsensor has since been removed so maybe it sold or was taken down. Car is a bit smelly and the seats are quite worn. Overall not a good collector grad option so we passed. ​
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Here is the car that I purchased.
  • Seventh and final car from Garage Defend/Manaboon. This whole process took less time than I thought it would as I was expecting to go back and forth for months if not a year, but I knew that if the right car popped up I would have to move fast. Manaboon is the sister shop to Garage Defend and if you saw in some of my posts, Doston had said they have another one coming in later in October. Well this is it and they posted it for sale on Saturday Oct 23rd. Doston and I talked about it that day and I sent a small deposit awaiting more information for the car to stay in first position. It is clean title with no previous history. Mileage is genuine with documentation to back it up. It comes with all the books and service history. Was garage kept and has 76k kilometers appx 47k miles and condition is perfect for a 25 year old car. There are some minor blemishes that we'll address from rock chips and paint but they will correct that as part of the purshase agreement. Outside of the ztune body parts, catback exhaust, and radiator the car is largely stock which is huge for me as it's rare to find one with so little done. I made the offer to buy it on Sunday and got the invoice/wiring instructions on Monday. Car was marked as sold on Tuesday when funds were received.
  • Underbody shots can be found here.
  • Purchase done here
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willizm

willizm

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  • #103
    So the Japan options I have right now are that silver low miles one from top rank which they offered at 167k including the storage so effectively 157k for the car and 10k to store. I can work this deal a little better as well as this was their first offer

    Garage defend has a bayside blue one coming in a week or so that is a bit higher mileage at 110k but he said is very clean and garage kept. That will be around 150k plus another 10k for storage. This one will be gone fast but he put me in first position as it’s exactly what I’m looking for.

    So I have the choice of low miles but not the color I want or the color I want but not with low miles for about the same price.

    what say you TCG? If both are same vspec and condition wise which would you go for? The more sought after color (bayside blue) or the lower miles(20k kilometers)
     
    willizm

    willizm

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  • #109
    Mook said:
    Ok so the blue one has like...what..65k miles? Something like that? Much better :rofl:
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    Yes, I’d like lower so may hold off but if the condition is really good for 110k kilometers and the deal makes sense it could be a contender. I haven’t rushed into anything yet, just weighing options but if the right one pops up for the price I’ll move quickly on it. Bayside blue cars don’t stick around. That other blue one (2001) was sold to a guy in Australia within 2 days
     
    willizm

    willizm

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  • #123
    Mook said:
    Loan me 200k, I'll buy it.
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    Here is my concern on buying a car that I don't have access to the history of especially from Canada. If a car is in the US and the fed government finds that it was imported illegally it is blacklisted permanently and forced to be exported. Those cars end up in neighboring countries, middle east, Australia, etc. If someone buys that car and imports it into the US they may not know the history of it being permanently blacklisted even after the 25 year period they could be SOL even though they are doing everything by the book. Craig Leiberman talks about this and if you think about it when it comes to 2024 and so on it's going to be just as important to know the history of the car than it being 25 year legal because there will be a number of these cars in circulation that are blacklisted and you wouldn't know unless you got one that was. This is why i'm being selective on the exporter to make sure they only do 25 year rule cars to the US. Even if someone does some legal and others illigally, that could tarnish the car as it's not from a 100% reputable exporter. I think the value of the car is going to be just as dependent on the spec and color as it is the exporter that provided it.

    It is very unlikely that someone would export it back to Japan when they have ready access to the car and working with a good exporter from Japan they will have access to the cars complete history if it was a JDM market car.

     
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    FirstWorldProblems

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  • #124
    willizm said:
    Here is my concern on buying a car that I don't have access to the history of especially from Canada. If a car is in the US and the fed government finds that it was imported illegally it is blacklisted permanently and forced to be exported. Those cars end up in neighboring countries, middle east, Australia, etc. If someone buys that car and imports it into the US they may not know the history of it being permanently blacklisted even after the 25 year period they could be SOL even though they are doing everything by the book. Craig Leiberman talks about this and if you think about it when it comes to 2024 and so on it's going to be just as important to know the history of the car than it being 25 year legal because there will be a number of these cars in circulation that are blacklisted and you wouldn't know unless you got one that was. This is why i'm being selective on the exporter to make sure they only do 25 year rule cars to the US. Even if someone does some legal and others illigally, that could tarnish the car as it's not from a 100% reputable exporter. I think the value of the car is going to be just as dependent on the spec and color as it is the exporter that provided it.

    It is very unlikely that someone would export it back to Japan when they have ready access to the car and working with a good exporter from Japan they will have access to the cars complete history if it was a JDM market car.

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    Damn, I remember following rivsu imports on fb back in the day
     
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