Shipment

In the meantime, I had collected a couple of offers from several different shipping companies in the USA for getting the car from Arvada in Colorado to Europe. Soon I found out that many of them were not able to offer an end-to-end transport but only one from Arvada to a European port.

I had received the tip to import the car via The Netherlands from Robert Meyer (www.big-jags.de) and Stefan Kranz (www.steviesgarage.de), because they have eliminated the toll charged for cars older than 30 years and furthermore only have an import tax of 6%, while in Germany one has to pay 10% of the purchase price as toll plus a 16% import tax on the purchase price, transport and toll.

To be able to avoid these taxes, the car has to be imported into the European Union via The Netherlands and the fees have to be paid there. As soon as the car is within the European Union, no further taxes have to be paid. However, if one forgets to do this, probably the Germans will ask for post-payment.

So after I had viewed several offers for a transport either to Amsterdam or Rotterdam, my final choice fell on Trans Global Auto Logistics (www.tgal.us) in Texas, who were the most cost-efficient for a transport of the car from Colorado to Amsterdam on a RoRo ferry: 1.650 USD (incl. transport insurance). I confirmed the order via fax and pre-payment since it seems that no shipping company works on the basis of invoices.

Kruse agreed a date for picking up the car with the owner Dan Verver in Colorado. All this had already taken 3 weeks to organise. Then the transport agent said the car was not in a driving condition and could not be transported on a truck. Chris Neuhouser of Kruse International said that was nonsense, the car was "in good driving condition",

that that was impossible, that the shipping company was "confused" ("The car runs & drives, I think the shipping company is confused. The car runs & drives fine!"). Well, it was difficult to say for us who was right...

I then asked Chris Neuhouser to make sure that the car is driveable and could be picked up with a car transporter. For three weeks, I didnīt hear anything. When I dared asked in the fourth week, I learnt that the car had been picked up. When then checking with Trans Global, I learnt that the car had been brought to the port in Jacksonville (Florida) for shipment.

Two months had passed since I had purchased the car, it was late November. Fortunately, it is still warm in Florida this time of year. Nevertheless, the shipment date I originally received had to be postponed because apparently the export documents were not with the car. This turned out to be another misunderstanding and thus a new shipment date just before Christmas envisaged.

However, the new date had to be postponed again because the ship needed to be go into a dock to be repared - so no Christmas present, and better to wait another few weeks than a Jaguar MK IX at the ground of the Atlantic ocean!

Three months had passed since the actual purchase of the car. The final shipment date was then the 6th of January 2004, and after about a week the car arrived in Amsterdam on the 12th of January 2004.

In the meantime, I had asked the partner of Trans Global in Amsterdam, Intermodal Transport (again via fax and pre-payment) to take care of the car including all necessary import procedures ("custom clearance") and look for a shipping company who would bring the car here to Eschborn, near Frankfurt. Intermodal performed these tasks very well and finally, after more than four months, the car arrived here on the 22nd of January.