Folks, please check out the article on the Vanagon.com site I wrote
on the bureaucratic hassles of importing a vanagon,. It's a couple of years
old, but the links are still good and its still pretty much on target. This
is an exercise only for very patient and persistent vanagon fans, and there
is still a risk that you fail and the vehicle has to be destroyed.

        http://www.vanagon.com/info/articles/importing.html
<http://www.vanagon.com/info/articles/importing.html>

        Tom F.

        -----Original Message-----
        From:   KENWILFY@AOL.COM [SMTP:KENWILFY@AOL.COM]
        Sent:   Monday, August 30, 1999 9:36 PM
        Subject:        Diesel Vanagon group purchase looking good!

        I have had a lot of postitive response on the diesel Vanagon group
purchase.
        So far about 5 people are really interested in at least buying one
van each.
        I hope this will encourage others to join in on this "once in a
lifetime"
        deal.

        As far as registering vans here, I am not experienced with this.  I
have
        heard of other folks buying Vanagons in Germany and bringing them
over (when
        they had that program) and we also see folks bringing crew cabs and
single
        cabs over from Canada and getting them setup for here.  I don't see
why it
        can't be done.  I would love to hear from someone who has done it so
that
        might give us a better idea of what we are getting into.

        The other thing is that, for some reason, customs is easier to get
through if
        you bring in a bunch of cars rather than just one.  I guess this
encourages
        trade or something.  If you bring in just one car you get
scrutinized to
        death but if you bring in a bunch they just give you a glance over
the herd
        and sign the papers (this is what I have heard from some reliable
sources).
        The one really good thing is that the vans that we want to bring
over were
        sold here in the US at the same time as they were in Germany.  That
means
        that we have crash test data, etc on these year Vanagons and
shouldn't have
        to go down that road.
        So please if you are interested in this group purchase of diesel
1.7l NA
        Vanagons with raised tops and 5-speed trannies, please let me know
as soon as
        you can.
        Thanks
        Ken Wilford
        Van-Again
        John 3:16