wow all souped up with turbo and stuff? interesting… from what i remember of the DMV in taiwan (Department of Motor Vehicles), they had a pretty strict regulations on what you could do to cars in terms of modifications. i recall they didn’t even let you repaint your car in different color other from the original factory color. but it’s been a while so not sure if they might have relaxed the regulations, or maybe this dude just found a very “friendly” DMV inspector… [/quote]
Everyone will tell you this but the reality is very different.
Anything can be passed with money, next to the DMV there are tons of little shops that charge you a fee to pass your car, takes 10 mins.
Say you have HID’s but its not on your cars document, its about 500nt extra over the standard test price, or something more extreme like an engine swap… about 4000nt extra.
The same people can also permantly change the documentation for the car to represent what you have installed… but it costs about 10k.
Its all very corrupt and dodgy really, dont let anyone convince you otherwise.[/quote]
ahhh… doesn’t seem like them taiwanese have changed much. kinda sad in their own culture development, but leaves you an opportunity to work it i suppose… though in this case, being a foreigner kinda adds another layer of challenge perhaps… cuz they just wanna rip the rounded-eyes off lol
so i can’t help to wonder if cops in taiwan would pull you over for any unlawful modifications? and if so wouldn’t them cops be able to trace upstream and figure out who the inspectors were? (i know cops in california would ask you to pop the hood to look for illegal modifications) or do you just drive around with a suitcase of cash to pay the cops off too…?? and if so, what’s the going rate? i mean last i heard it’s still only 40 bucks in tj, mexico lol
Its all very corrupt and dodgy really, dont let anyone convince you otherwise.[/quote]
Who would try?[/quote]
Everyone… so many people always tell me ‘this is illegal here you know’ or ‘you wont pass your test with that on you know’ this is from various tuners and owners of modified cars.
They all seem to have it in their head that the country is upright and proper like back home and just love to remind foreigners of that b.s fact.[/quote]
maybe they don’t want you to ruin their connections…? or that they don’t want you to have cooler rides than them…?? i dunno lol
[quote=“Socrates”]
Well I’m in Taipei and I gotta say, after years of searching for a lovely Datsun
I only found a couple of beaten up pickup trucks and a fairly nice B210 (1978) for which
the guy (who is a car mechanic by the way) laughed his head off when I asked him
whether he’d be interested in selling it… After lengthy negotiations though, he finally
offered me a price: $NT 1,500,000 ! ! !
I politely declined hoping I could go back after a few years and talk some reason into him
but since then that Datsun has disappeared [/quote]
dUUUUUUUde… that’s like 50k usd man…! was he smoking crack??! or did you not hear him right…? lol do old datsun’s really have that kinda value in taiwan…?? or was that just a special price for the rounded-eye… i know they made a shit load of b210’s back in the days, cuz they were mainly taxi cabs throught out the whole island. maybe you’ll come across to one again someday soon… well, you’d rather have a b210 fastback anyway, not to mention they put a sissy ass 1200cc in that thing for taiwan. but an old datsun pick up would be pretty cool… they had a lot of them pick ups for utility and construction companies (the phone company pick ups were painted in school bus yellow and a black canvas camper for the bed. kinda cool… ) i know they also had 510’s, 610’s in taiwan back in the days, i think even 410’s too! but that was way way back, and i’d imagine those would be so rare to find… but ya, that’s weird that those cars were put away after you had inquired about them. i mean do you think that was like a cultural thing? that he thinks you were up to no good, cuz no typical taiwanese would care about old beater cars? i dunno, that whole cultural thing could be weird and tricky sometimes…
btw, how do you search for old cars in taiwan? just word to mouth? or do you go explore around to look for them? classified ads? online?
Well no Taiwanese seems to be interested in anything older than 10 years (make that 5) so word of mouth and/or ads are simply no good around here… It’s basically a matter of pure old c-h-a-n-c-e
That Datsun I found was always parked on the same spot around where I used to work…
Well sure, but there aren’t many pre-73 cars, almost by definition, and those (now pricy) classics aren’t what they are targetting, but pre-2000 cars. Bangers rather than classics, in other words.
Or in other other words, MY bloody cars, ya bastards.
ya… good point there! car culture in taiwan def seems to be still rather “shallow” shall we say…?[/quote]
Goes deeper and wider than cars. Old buildings of character, established communities, habitats, etc, etc. If it gets in the way of a shiny fast buck, its gone, without, AFAIK, a whisper of protest.
(Though admittedly it’d have to be a whisper loud enough to get translated into English before I’d know about it).
My mechanic in Taichung has a classic Yue Loong that is the same age as him. I thought it was cool (It looks like a miniature version of the classic 50s American cars), and that’s one of the reason I chose him. He loves my older car, which I call a classic, and he loves to give me special prices because I keep up my older car. He has some other customers with older cars, and whenever they are in his shop, people will come in and ask him about them. But it’s a very small market here.
I have seen a shop in Taichung that sells classic cars. It’s in the “beitun” section on SongZhu road. They have lots of old benzes, old BMWs, a VW camper, and a kharmann Ghia. It’s fun to drive by and see them.
But recently, my mechanic said I should sell my car to a photography studio
[quote=“douglas@taichungpaws.org”]My mechanic in Taichung has a classic Yue Loong that is the same age as him. I thought it was cool (It looks like a miniature version of the classic 50s American cars), and that’s one of the reason I chose him. He loves my older car, which I call a classic, and he loves to give me special prices because I keep up my older car. He has some other customers with older cars, and whenever they are in his shop, people will come in and ask him about them. But it’s a very small market here.
I have seen a shop in Taichung that sells classic cars. It’s in the “beitun” section on SongZhu road. They have lots of old benzes, old BMWs, a VW camper, and a kharmann Ghia. It’s fun to drive by and see them.
But recently, my mechanic said I should sell my car to a photography studio [/quote]
sAweet!!! you’re just the kinda person i’m looking to for…! :bravo: i’m gearing my stuff up in LA right now, but once i’m there in a month or so i’ll be out and about searching for a cool ride… i’ll have to ask to see if you could provide me a google map location of this shop so i could go check it out… i mean i think i’ll still be doing a fair amount of searching on my own at various random neighborhoods, but it’s def nice to know of a good location and perhaps meet a few taiwanese who have the appreciation for classic cars! yay… lead number one! thank you so much!! let’s see if there’s more input from you folks out there.
btw, what kinda cool ride do you have? care to share a pic of it? i’m curious to see. please…
There was a Toyota chaser 1989 model with a 2JZ swap installed on Yahoo for a while back, also there was a proper old skool fairlady 240z kicking about too.
These cars are out there, you just need to keep your eyes peeled.
While I have seen a few older cars here in Taichung and in Tainan (mid to late 60’s Benz sedans and 70’s-80’s Mini’s), I have seen a surprising number of super cars: a Rolls, couple of Bentleys, Murcielagos (hard top and roadster), Porsche GT3 and Carrera GT, R8, Ferrari 450, 360 and TestaRossa and a few others. That Carrera GT has to top the list: $440,000US list price when it is in production in the middle of the last decade. GAWD…
Yes, but you also have to consider the Scooter Effect. Scooters are a cheap, throwaway kind of transportation. The culture has adjusted and embraced them. If you’re a young guy (I am not), I suspect that most girls don’t have the expectation that they will be picked up by their boyfriends in a car; probably a nice bonus, but probably not a deal-breaker. So, where is the incentive and the upside for spending your money on car-related things? Note that this is from the perspective from someone who has ALWAYS been a Car Guy…
I saw a legally plated C5 Corvette for sale about a year ago, I regret not buying it. I was planning on buying a C6 vette that year but then the economy went to shit in a handbasket and I have been looking for that damn car ever since. Wonder if anyone bought it or is it still sitting in the back lot of a dealer somewhere?
I have a true classic in a 911 SC Porsche 1978 that has been fully restored and want to get it into Taiwan. I would probably pay someone 100,000 TWD to make it happen. Any takers?
The loophole for overseas Chinese students bringing over vehicles without usual import regulations or inspection is already closed, therefore I don’t believe there is any way to legally import a car this old for use on public roads.
PS: if your car was in the legal age range then $100k would not be anywhere near enough to cover ARTC (safety/emissions) testing and initial registration, let alone import duties.
[/quote]
[/quote]
i know they made a shit load of b210’s back in the days, cuz they were mainly taxi cabs throught out the whole island. maybe you’ll come across to one again someday soon… well, you’d rather have a b210 fastback anyway, not to mention they put a sissy ass 1200cc in that thing for taiwan. but an old datsun pick up would be pretty cool… they had a lot of them pick ups for utility and construction companies (the phone company pick ups were painted in school bus yellow and a black canvas camper for the bed. kinda cool… ) i know they also had 510’s, 610’s in taiwan back in the days, i think even 410’s too! but that was way way back, and i’d imagine those would be so rare to find… but ya, that’s weird that those cars were put away after you had inquired about them. i mean do you think that was like a cultural thing? that he thinks you were up to no good, cuz no typical taiwanese would care about old beater cars? i dunno, that whole cultural thing could be weird and tricky sometimes… 
[/quote]
thank you so much!! 
let’s see if there’s more input from you folks out there.
