Hi everyone

I just did a search and found this forum.
I am in Newcastle and have just purchased a 64 which is still in the States.
I recently completed a 3 year restoration on a 1958 Ford Customline and I have always wanted a Thunderbird too.
I am worn out after the Customline rebuild so this time I wanted a car that was ready to drive and not restore.
After an extensive search I believe I have a car that ticks all the boxes for me, but now I will have to wait 2-3 months to get my hands on it.
A quick video of her -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2k_smnmjok#t=11

Welcome to the forum Snowc, that is a very clean and lovely car.

Graeme

WOW
Very very nice, I think you'll be very happy with that GEM.
Any plans or is she staying as is. Love the Burgundy but then I am Bias.

Welcome to the forum ~ Snowcone,

That's a great looking bird !!

Your going to have some great cruising in her.

DaveG wrote:WOW
Very very nice, I think you'll be very happy with that GEM.
Any plans or is she staying as is. Love the Burgundy but then I am Bias.

No plans to change anything, just fix up whatever needs doing.
A couple of items that are obvious to me are the crack in the steering wheel (wheel cover will fix this), 2 cracks in the dash pad (has a dash mat on it now but I might fit an aftermarket dash cover pad), radio is not working (I don't know what I will do here as I do not want to change the original dash look so I might have to live with it or put a radio/cd in the boot) The sound proofing is peeling off some of the underfloor areas (I will just redo the subfloor with new deadener as I still have half a drum left from the Customline)
I will make her 100% reliable and use her for weekend cruising but not expecting her to be a show car

Hi Snowcone,
Who did you use to purchase your car as i'm looking at purchasing one from the states and get it containered back to Australia.

I actually bought the car off eBay and I am using USAtoAUS.com to do all the overland transport, storage, containering, sea freight and import/export approvals. Cost for their services is 5K

So 5k all up to get it into the country.
If so that's a bargain.

I seen a lot on Craigslist that fit my bill so just working through the numbers.
Cheers
Gary

If you google the model car you are looking for and put USA after it, it should take you to the USA equivelant of carsales.com and other car sites too.
Also USAto Aus will help source cars and arrange inspections if you want.
I didn't use them for that as the car yard I bought the Bird from had a 4 minute video and 100 photos as well as a full description.
I googled the car yard and checked out his previous feedback etc so I decided he seemed genuine enough to take a gamble with.
My only hiccup so far is with the payment. My building society appears to have cocked up the international transfer which was done last tuesday and now the money has gone into limbo. They are still trying to find where it is but I know it's not in my account and the Bank of New York says it's not in theirs!
In this case USAtoAUS will also arrange the secure handover of funds but foolishly I thought my building society could handle it from here.

Hi Guys

There is a guy in California who I asked about getting a car for me and his price in 2010 was $2400 but I think you had to get it off of the wharf yourself. There is a guy here in Perth who brought my car over for $3500. I had the car delivered to his shipping address in the US and I picked it up at the place in Perth were it was pressure washed. He did everything else. $5000 seems a bit expensive to me but I guess it depends on how long and were it is being stored. My car sat at the yard for a month before it went into the container. I'd look around and get a few prices from others. If you want I can probably find their email address's or if you want check out the Aussie Mustang Forum and look for posts about shipping there is plenty of info there.

Good Luck
Phil

I just found these kazken123@aol.com and Wayne Luxford americawest@bigpond.com

Thanks Phil,
I'm looking at several different importer at the moment and still haven't found that just right car.
In saying that i'm in no hurry as I don't want to buy the first one I see.

Cheers
Gary

if you need to get a car appraisal look at these guys Auto Appraise, Inc. cars@autoappraise.com I think it was about $600. They spend about three hours going over the car. I didn't use them myself but I wish I had. I used someone cheaper and got caught out a bit and ended up paying about $2k more for my car than I should have.

Phil

snowcone wrote:I actually bought the car off eBay and I am using USAtoAUS.com to do all the overland transport, storage, containering, sea freight and import/export approvals. Cost for their services is 5K

Welcome Gary and good to have you on board mate.
I used them 2 times and they are great. Indy and Phil where very helpful and I paid in instalments by the time arrived.
Great people to deal with. They even let you load up your car full of parts and even let you bring other parts back for free in the container.
They always only put three cars in a container so people can bring back more stuff.
Nick

1965bird wrote:

snowcone wrote:I actually bought the car off eBay and I am using USAtoAUS.com to do all the overland transport, storage, containering, sea freight and import/export approvals. Cost for their services is 5K

Welcome Gary and good to have you on board mate.
I used them 2 times and they are great. Indy and Phil where very helpful and I paid in instalments by the time arrived.
Great people to deal with. They even let you load up your car full of parts and even let you bring other parts back for free in the container.
They always only put three cars in a container so people can bring back more stuff.
Nick

Hi Nick
I was going to reply to the posts above but you have just said everyting I was going to say.
If you are buying a $5K project car then obviously the cheapest freight will be OK and if the car gets a few knocks on the way out then it is no big deal, but if you are buying a car that has already been restored or is in very good condition to start with then you want to be sure it is going to get here safe.
I had a quote for $2200 from another company in the States but it was only for the sea freight part of it.
USAtoAUS have 7 staff in the US and 5 in Aus. They organise the overland transport from the seller to their OWN indoor warehouse for storage before shipping. They allow you to buy parts and send them out with the car at no extra cost. They only put 3 cars to a container (a lot put 4) and they use their own racking. They do the paperwork with both the US and Aus governments and they do the quarantine cleaning when it gets to AUS.
Sounded like a lot of peace of mind for me so I went them

Well said Gary if I decide to buy another car from the States I will 100% go with them.
I know someone that brought a motorhome from the States using them with not a scratch.
Nick  

I've never used USA to Aus but they get a very good rap over on the US Muscle Forum, Lots of guys there bringing in Camaros and Mustangs, I reckon word of mouth is the best reference you can get for a company. The old saying usually applies
"You only get what you pay for"

One step at a time.
The car has been picked up from the dealer in Idaho and should now be in storage waiting for the container to fill.
It's going to take aggggeeeessss!!

love the colour 

Now the waiting game starts. after 6-8 weeks you'll be bitting your nails. Looks good.       

Love it, Love it, Love it, !!!!!!!!!!! Looks like you've found a winner .

I'd like to have it here, any work done and registered so I can attend Chromefest with her in October.
http://www.chromefest.org/
If she isn't ready then I will take her older sister

DaveG wrote:I've never used USA to Aus but they get a very good rap over on the US Muscle Forum, Lots of guys there bringing in Camaros and Mustangs, I reckon word of mouth is the best reference you can get for a company. The old saying usually applies
"You only get what you pay for"

I take back everything I said about USAtoAUS. (also trading as Aussie Car imports)
They are as crooked as they come.
I also read some posts on the Muscle car forum but they are mostly from the owner patting himself on the back to get more business.
Current estimates of the damage they did transporting the car sit between $1-2K.
They have admitted to some of the damage but the compenstion offer was to supply some second hand parts that have some surface rust on them and then ship them in a container which will take 12 weeks to get here and then no mention of painting them, which i have been quoted at $400.00 if there is no rust on them.
That's just for one of the issues.
The owner has stopped replying to me and I haven't heard from him for around a month.
since doing a search on his company i have found he is not registered for GST but has charged me around $1500 in GST.
I also paid him for insurance and he never supplied me with any details and when i mentioned i might need to claim he never replied.
I have heard that some companies charge for insurance but never actually take out a policy and just pocket the premium, which this looks like the case.
I also paid about $1300 for Quarantine charges but then they would not release the car unless i paid a further $425 for additional Quarantine cleaning. This was for a car that was in showroom condition when it left the dealership in Boise and i have all photos of it. I requested to see the additional cleaning request paperwork from Quarantine and was told there wasn't any to see. Looks like another scam to get more money out of owners by telling them this bullshit too.
Another issue with the car was the air conditioning. When it left the USA I was forwarded an invoice showing that it had just had a new compressor and gassed with R134A.
it obviously had to be degassed when it arrived here but i don't belive the air conditioning system should have been vandalised the way it was. Anyone with any refrigeration knowledge wil tell you that getting moisture into the system is a killer, hence dryers and closed systems. Well the clowns that degassed it took all the compressor hoses off, all the dryer hoses off, and all the condensor hoses off and left them lying in the engine bay with no plugs or caps anywhere.
I have now made a formal claim against the company through the QLD Department of Fair Trading.
I will wait for the result before stating any more on an open forum but all indications are that this mob is a bunch of scammers and should be avoided like Ebola.

Hi snowcone
Sounds a bit suspect. If they had an insurance policy for damage why would they be offering to send you parts to fix it? Surely they would just let the insurer take care of it. I have parts for my bird coming to Fremantle with them. They have been sitting at their US depot for about 6 weeks. I sent them an email asking for an estimate on departure and funnily the reply said they had just loaded the container the other day.
So we'll see how long it takes to get here. Good luck.

Goes to court on 8th December so see how it pans out

Laurence Ryan asked for an extension of time as he is in the USA and has not seen the paperwork yet.
Just another stalling tactic.
It was delivered and received at his address 3 weeks ago.
It only takes a few days for the document to be forwarded from his Brisbane office to the USA via airmail.
He is sneaky and doesn't have any office or contact addresses on his website so I used a private investigator to do a reverse check on the phone number they advertise, and then I signed an avidavit to confirm it had been delivered.

To be continued but never given up on.