dismantling a car to avoid vrt

Our man in Havana

Here's a mad idea, would it work?

Buy a car in the UK or up north, dismantle it and import her in bits. Get her home and reassemble. Can you avoid VRT doing this?

I know it is mad but anything is worth trying.

alias no.9

It's not an importation tax [yeah right] it's a registration tax. You can do anything you want with it until you want to use it on the roads here, at which point it must be registered and to do this, you must obligingly bend over and grab your ankles.

KTRIC

What type of car is it ?

You could buy a scrap version of it here and fix it with the good parts from the import and avoid VRT altogether. You just need to keep the engine and frame numbers.

maidhc

K-TRIC wrote:

You could buy a scrap version of it here and fix it with the good parts from the import and avoid VRT altogether. You just need to keep the engine and frame numbers.

There was company doing this before with landrovers IIRC. Much easier and more legal if you have a rolling chassis.

Skyuser

I never a heard a more stupid idea.

Santa Claus

K-TRIC wrote:

What type of car is it ?

You could buy a scrap version of it here and fix it with the good parts from the import and avoid VRT altogether. You just need to keep the engine and frame numbers.

Yeah, but the cost of bringing in the parts from outside the country would be more expensive I'd imagine !

maidhc

Skyuser wrote:

I never a heard a more stupid idea.

So it makes no sense to:

1) Buy a knackered Series IIA, Series III Land Rover.
2) Get a nice Defender in the UK.
3) Spend a few weekends swapping over parts, grinding and welding.
4) Getting a vehicle that you can lawfully tax and insure as a classic, but that is still reasonably modern.

No its not for everybody, but it is an option for some.

FX Meister

My uncle used to do this years ago. Bought a crashed car here and then brought one down from the North and swapped all the parts over. It was kind of dodgy though as he used to bring them across the border at night on the back roads. He made tons of money out of it.

Mailman

especially if the only parts he changed over were the chassis and engine no. plate.

Seth Brundle

What determines the car according to the revenue? Is it the chassis?

Kermitt

AFAIK it is the chassis that determines registration. A former neighbour of mine got a Land Rover Discovery body and running gear built onto a Series II Chassis - Its slightly longer than the Disco - He's 6'7. Basically it was a brand new Discovery but the reg was ZIO _ _ _ . Chassis was from the early '70s so the reg was kept from that.

Seth Brundle

So next question, it is allowed to fix a chassis without further taxation. Is replacment of the chassis tax exempt?

Kermitt

Don't know about replacing chassis, or bits of it. I'd imagine if you replace the chassis, its classed as a different vehicle.

KTRIC

kbannon wrote:

So next question, it is allowed to fix a chassis without further taxation. Is replacment of the chassis tax exempt?

There's fixing the chasis and then there's replacing the chasis. If you replace it then its a different vehicle, as the chasis is essentially the car.

SouperComputer

at OP, nice tags ROFLROFFLE