I’m asking because I know it will cost thousands to do, but I want to know if it will cost a few thousands, or if it will take “no visible means of income” levels of wealth to do this.
I know Japan is very very strict about registering old cars and that it is incredibly expensive. I want to drive MY car (so no, even if renting a car while there is cheaper, it’s against the point), and it will be an 80’s sports car. If I only intend to drive for 1 week, is there any way to save money like a tourist visa…but for my car? Maybe get into a car show and skirt the regular rules for driving in Japan?
Tokyo area, 1980’s car from the USA, how many thousands am I looking at? 10k?
My guess is that $10k would only be the start: that would about cover the cost of shipping the car to Japan and back. Next you’d need to pay a customs agent in Japan to get it through customs, and customs will want its share: perhaps a bond in the order of millions of yen to ensure that you re-export it from Japan.
The other problem is that international freight doesn’t run to timetables like passenger services do: to ensure that the car is in Japan for the week that you want to be there, you might need to allow two or three weeks slippage while it waits at Long Beach or Oakland for a freighter to Yokohama. It might not even go direct – my wife and I recently shipped half a container from Ohio to here, and it went via Norfolk VA, and changed ships at Singapore.
I have no idea how much it’d cost, suffice to say there’s quite a few left-hand drive vehicles, at least in Tokyo. BMWs, Mercedes, imported Corvettes and Hummers/SUVs, etc… they’re pretty fashionable and chic, so it’s at least within the realm of possibility.
But a ballpark guess, you’re going to have to pay a ridiculous, simply ludicrous amount of money.
If you google “international car shipping” you get a whole bunch of companies, some of which give instant quotes. Why not check some of those out? They should at least be able to give you a ballpark figure on the shipping costs and one of them might even give you the scoop on the legal issues.
In general most countries are okay with tourists bringing their own cars for short visits without having to pay import duties, even if the cars don’t meet all of the regulations they would need to in order to be permanently imported. Although that might not be the case in Japan, what with them being an island nation and one that is known for draconian car laws. Contacting the closest Japanese consulate would probably be the best way to go about finding out-- even if that’s not exactly a question they get asked a lot, they should be able to figure it out for you.
Tokyo is a horrible, horrible place to drive a car, IMHO. You might also find that left-hand steering wheel cars are not well accommodated in the tight side roads you’ll find yourself on. As [cc] says, you do occasionally see such cars on the road, but I’d be dubious about risking it myself.
If you do go, make sure you get used to the differences in road signs. Stop signs, for instance, look nothing like the typical North American version.