Freeways boring and no good for posing anyway.
No one’d even get to read the “AND my plates cost $5000!” sticker.
[quote=“Ducked”]Freeways boring and no good for posing anyway.
No one’d even get to read the “AND my plates cost $5000!” sticker.[/quote]
It seems a ludicrous charge Ducked,I know…Truth is I can’t remember if that was for both sets or each,only that it is a Yearly charge !! I guess it would be a good way to be able to use Cars,which would never pass the ARTC test,if it was cheap!. I think that is the reasoning behind it.Delivering /test driving etc cars is difficult with so few Trade plates…we seem lend them out to other Dealers constantly.
Should rent them, but I suppose what goes around…
Come to think of it I suppose the above argument on requirements for old cars might be due to a confusion between importing them, and running old cars that were imported new or built in Taiwan.
I was referring to the latter situation. I believe the legal/regulatory requirements for personally importing any car are very onerous, and that importing an old car (older than 10 years?) is impossible.
[quote=“Ducked”]Should rent them, but I suppose what goes around…
Come to think of it I suppose the above argument on requirements for old cars might be due to a confusion between importing them, and running old cars that were imported new or built in Taiwan.
I was referring to the latter situation. I believe the legal/regulatory requirements for personally importing any car are very onerous, and that importing an old car (older than 10 years?) is impossible.[/quote]
Well you can import them but not Register them really. Have seem some very old cars on the Island ,which are registered,as you said,…hence “legal” ish. Still,they are supposed to pass Emmisions Test etc. 
There are classic cars out there, I have come across one or two. I saw this in March in Luzhou.
As a classic car lover, I had to take a photo.
I was informed that they have classic bike conventions in Taiwan, no idea about cars.
100% legit. No year sticker, BTW.
Saw this a couple of weeks ago. The body was in great condition.
The owner was surprised and couldn’t figure out why I’d taken a photo. Giving him the thumbs up because of his car saw him quite pleased.
Also saw for the first time here a Nissan Figuro in Shi-Jr on the way to the beach. That was a couple of weeks ago. It was getting serviced in a garage. Didn’t take my phone that day, so no camera opportunity.
That’s lovely!
There’s a red BMW just like the orange one posted above, but not as well taken care, rotting away sitting at the side of the road close to the Songshan airport. Every time I pass it I wish that I had the right facilities and skills to restore it to it’s potential. If anyone’s seriously interested in buying it and nursing it back to life, I’ll write down an address or something next time I pass it, although I don’t know exactly how one would contact the owner.
Probably been bao fei’d. (registration cancelled). If it hasn’t, I believe the DMV cancel the reg themselves after it hasn’t been taxed for a period (6 months?) unless the owner explicitly suspends the reg.
I believe this because that’s what they did with my broken Ford Sierra, somewhat to my relief since I was afraid I might have accumulated a huge fine and tax backlog on it.
This apparently does not happen, (or at least it didn’t to me) but there’s been expert opinion/anecdote on here to the contrary, so maybe it depends on the breaks.
I don’t think its possible to un-bao fei a car, but I’ve never tried.
Talking of the breaks, see below for a minor addition to the discussion/argument on the difficulty or otherwise of getting an 80’s car through emissions testing:-
[quote=“Ducked”]
I havn’t had any trouble passing emmissions with my 80’s car, but I’ve never had to take it to a govt test station, which might well be a different story. .[/quote]
Well I have now, because I lost my registration document. This meant I was obliged to pass DMV inspection, and it was a different story, though with a happy ending.
I wasn’t optimistic because governments generally are hostile to old cars, and I thought the DMV guys might therefore be hostile too. I had no real idea on braking efficiency/balance (seemed to stop ok) or emissions (plugs look about right) and accordingly had made no attempt to tune down or fake the latter.
In fact, they seemed to find it an amusing novelty.
I turned up with my gf, and, while waiting in the queue, she apparently gave them a shameless sob-story about me being a poor hard working dedicated teacher and we were leaving for Australia next week (steerage, naturally – well Air Asia which is about equivalent) and if it failed I’d be depressed and suicidal and, since I came from Scotland, I might turn violent-drunk and drive her and the starving weans out into the snow.
Mostly true of course, but in the Yook one maintains a stiff upper lip about that kind of thing.
Anyway, it seemed that the DMV guys needed to see the right numbers on their gizmo’s, but I got the impression that getting them could be heavily influenced by driver technique, which is a bit surprising if true.
With the DMV guys on-side, I got lots of directions on how to work the brake pedal (I THINK maybe a sharp jab maximizes the transient braking force recorded, though I was in WTF? mode at the time.)
For the emissions test I was getting simulcast contradictory broken Chinglish/Mandarin instructions on throttle control from DMV minder (left ear) and gf (right ear) and I’m afraid I lost it a bit and started to giggle uncontrollably.
At that point the DMV guys suggested I take it for a run to get it warmed up (and me calmed down, presumably) and come back for another try, which I did, scaring the gf because, although I couldn’t drive fast in the centre of Tainan, I kept the revs high which “sounds scary”.
A bit before return I gave the car a quick “stage-one eco-tune”, ie I removed the air cleaner and hid it under the seat. Dunno how effective that was.
2nd try a DMV guy took it through (this is standard at the private test centre I usually go to) and was able to coax acceptable numbers from it.
So you CAN get an 80’s car through an “official” (sort of) Taiwan govt test, but it helps if you have the knack, and/or take a girl or two with you.
This lives just up the street from me…
Oh, now that is what we are talking about, looks like the real deal …in spite of the paint job (tell me it is my monitor that gives this hot pink vive). Nice…
Eh, no plates?
Yes, it doesn’t look registered… too bad
Imagine driving one of these along the East Coast:
I can imagine that it´d be like a bouncing boat 
I saw this a couple of weeks ago:
Some kind of classic show in Tainan on Sunday.
They were just setting up when I passed through on the way to the train, but there were a few interesting things around. Lots of old motorbikes, a Peel Microcar (I THINK) as seen on TopGear a while ago, a strange 3-wheeled Vespa, some flash-looking Ferrari’s (I THINK) outside the flash-looking Shangri la hotel, and a 1937 Model A Ford.
(So I’ve got the two oldest sightings so far, 1937 and 1944-ish).
I AM da ANORAK!
Unfortunately I didn’t have a camera with me on the way out. A lot of the interesting stuff had gone by the time I came back, but I got a few pics I’ll post later.
There was also (I think) a Rokon 2-wheel drive motorcycle. I’ve seen these once or twice over the years, but never really knew what they were. There was a brief shot of one on TV this morning, in Billy Conelly’s Route 66 final episode, which reminded me of the Tainan sighting.
Then I stumbled across the website while I was looking for something else. Serendipity.
Perhaps I’m fated to own one, though it does seem unlikely.
BWS on steroids?
Looking at the posts it is obvious that registering older classic cars seem impossible. In my home country, we have a law that allows private citizens to build their own cars and get them registered as the year model they where built. Meaning I can build a 1932 Ford Roadster replica and get it registered as a 2013 model if I manage to get it ready this year. What does the TW import rules say in a case like that if I want to import the car and get it registered in TW?
I think it says “Buick off”, or maybe “Fuck off”.
My eyes are getting worse, I can’;t read the fine print so well anymore.