Mexican Beetles - Finding/Purchasing/Importing (Page 1 of 4)

Tom's description of what I did is accurate.  I took a rotten 74 Sunbug down and "most" of a new Mexican Beetle back up.

Although technically you can bring in a non-complying car into Canada, I highly recommend against doing so.  You will have to prove that you destroyed the chassis after you are done with it or there are stiff fines.

For me, crossing the border into the USA at AZ was no problem.  To the customs officer I was not a US resident bringing in a potentially non-complying car.

When I got to the CDN border, all I was doing was returning in my "74 Beetle"  Even with all the numbers on the car matching my CDN registration, it took me almost 2 hrs to get through Canada Customs.

The emissions numbers for Mexico are the same as for the USA/Canada, so it will have no problems passing any sniffer test.  However, the car does not meet USA/Canada emissions standards since the standards here require that all cars have OBD II diagnostic capability.  Emissions specs are the least of your problems if you think you can register it here as a 2003 model year.  In the past you were allowed to modify your foreign car to meet CDN laws, but no more.  They had problems with people not following through with the mods.  For example, some cheap bastard wants to buy a new Merc Benz.  He sees the price of a particular model here, but knows that they are $4-5K cheaper for the same model in Germany.  So he buys the car in Germany and ships it over, only to find out he now has to spend $10k to upgrade it to CDN laws.  So he goes crying to Transport Canada for an exemption.  Finally, in response, Transport Canada had a law passed.  If the manufacturer doesn't state the car meets CDN standards, you can't bring it in.  No exceptions.

If you really want to have one of these cars, watch TheSamba ads.  They come up all the time on there.  Look for one that is built on an old German made pan that was registered in the USA for the last 3 decades.  Buy it and bring it into Canada as an antique car (no duty).  Any btlmex car is done this way.  The biggest concern I would have buying such a car is rust.  Find out if the car was driven through the last 6 Chicago winters or not.  The Mexican factory made no effort to rust protect the cars since there isn't much rust in Mexico.   If I were to buy such a car, I'd confirm the condition as best as I could, then buy a one-way flight and drive it home.  This gives you the opportunity to back out of the deal if it is a rotten car.  IMO, stay away from any car with an aftermarket sunroof.  If anyone claims their sunroof was factory installed, they are wrong.  All Mexican Beetles with sunroofs are aftermarket.

An interesting proposal...

Offhand, I can't think of any reason why you couldn't do that.  Get a 40 foot van, take it to Mexico and find a decent VW.  Pull the body as a unit and shove it in the van.  Then remove the engine, transmission and rear suspension and put them in the truck, followed by the front suspension.  Fill in the extra spaces with the shift lever, shift rod, pedal cluster, clutch and accelerater cables and there you are.  Leave the bare pan by the roadside and drive your parts back to the US.

This is essentially what BTLMEX did, only they used brand new Beetles and had an older US Beetle pan waiting across the border to put everything on.

As near as I know there  are no prohibitions regarding the importation of parts into the US.  However, if you arrive at the border with a truck filled with what appears to be a complete Beetle, you may find yourself unloading the whole thing to prove to the US officials that there is no pan hidden away somewhere in there.

If you want to get really creative, try this...

Drive your old beetle to Mexico for a short stay "vacation".  Once there, find the newer VW of your dreams.  Take them both to a willing shop and have the serial number area cut out of both cars.  Switch the SNs and weld them back in.  Let the shop have your old car for their troubles.  Do the same switch with the data plates in the trunk and Voila, the 2000 model you found there is now the older model you drove in with.  Arriving back at the border there should be no problem since the numbers on the car you're driving back match the numbers on the car you drove in.

Of course Tom is right.  I guess my "tounge-in-cheekiness" didn't come over too well.  Be aware all, no matter what you may do to try to circumvent the law, you might get away with it or you may get caught.  If the latter, be prepared to pay whatever consequences ensue.

More crash pix :
at .04 seconds:

at .10 seconds

at .18 seconds

I believe these were 60KPH (36 MPH) test photos but I'm not positive.
You'll note the dummy is wearing a shoulder restraint but still wound up between the door and the steering wheel and up to the windshield.  OUCH.

If you were thinking of driving down there with a big truck to bring back 99% of the parts, why not just drive down in a rotten car and do the whole swap there?

If you wanted to truck the parts back you will require an invoice for every part you have.  Then you have to get a customs broker to do the import for you.  Since the amount is over $2k, you can't do it yourself.

Find a willing shop and do the swap there.  From my experience, you would be wise to strip the pan off the doner car at home and weld in the new pan halves there.  Then blast and paint it.  Re-install the rotten body and drive down.  It may seem like a lot of extra work, but the swap in Mexico will go a lot faster if you don't have to restore the pan there.

Treesa: No "kevin" here... "Clancy" is the nickname my folks gave me becasue they couldn't think of anything else(?!). Have you checked the VIN numbers on the chassis tunnels beneath the rear seat? Could these be new bodies (and odometers) placed on old chassis's? A good number of those were brought in leagally and titled by the year of the donor pan. If this is truly a Mexican Beetle, I'm not sure how they got here, legally.

Clancy