Ok, does anyone want to take the plunge with me??
 

Alright, I was already pretty intent on picking up a Honda Beat, and now I just got an offer of employment from the air force, so now I definitely have the funds.

I'm looking for all info/research anyone would be willing to share. I've been reading everything I could find on the boards, especially DaX's experiences. I've been watching ebay and everywhere else one can be found for sale, and there don't seem to be any real gems showing up. So I've decided to go with one of the import companies and import exactly what I want.

MetroMPG, I know you had some correspondence with jdm-imports, and he seemed pretty enthusiastic when posting here. Are you still contemplating? I'd love to have someone/some more people doing this with me, lol. Seems like it might take some of the worry off.

Does anyone know any other import companies they've heard good things about?

Thats about all I got for now, except if anyone's done any more research into transmission mods for these things, I'd be eager to see what you have.

Robert

What is Honda Beat. Im assuming its a Honda not available for sale in USA. maybe Europe or something
I have also wanted import cars. I never knew until a couple weeks ago that Toyota makes a hatchback version of the Corolla. (And it makes pretty good mpg). The only hatchback here is the Matrix which is offered here but will turn into the Blade for 2009 with a 2.4L engine which of course will eat tons of gas. Why is it that engines outside of USA are much smaller and more efficient. There is car availble in 1.2, 1.4 and by special order a 1.6L engine. But in the US the SAME exact car comes standard with a 1.8 L engine. And we wonder why we get such bad gas mileage. Toyota also makes a car named Ayo (something like that) which I wouldnt miding finding out about.
Getting 50mpg overseas is not a big deal. Its the car companies that dont offer smaller engines. I thought that car companies just didnt sell us small cars, but it appears that they even when they sell te same car it will come with a suped-up gas hungry engine. The Prius is nothing special. Gib reason for its nice mpg is because it has small 1.0L engine. Can someone please put this in a small econo car. Even without hybrid technology I beat soeone can get similar mpg in a Yaris with small 1.2 engine. Maybe it wont go 110mph on highway up a hill ith 4 passengers inside, but it will fir the needs of 75% of most of us.
Sorry for ranting. Id LOVE to join you but wont be ready for prob a couple years. I SO SO SO WAAAAANT to buy an import car. Stick shift with small reasonably powerful engine.

StanleyD -

A Honda beat is a super cute mini sports car that Honda sold in Japan :

1991 Honda Beat on eBay
https://www.gassavers.org/showthread.php?t=2686

Attachment 819

CarloSW2

looks kinda like a mr2. whats the mpg's on that thing?

I'll take one of those. Unless my Mini X comes out ;)

Can't we just have a small 2 seater with a 0.6L engine and good gearing? Maybe not EVERYONE in the US cares about horsepower. Oh right, profit, forgot they needed that. It's funny how they design efficient cars like an EV2 and say no one in the US wants a car like that. I bet most anyone here would take an EV2 over what they currently have.

I remember them being pretty expensive. And not amenable to high or low tempreratures.

they would be fine enough in tons of places tho. And there are tons of people willing to drop a little more cash on a car like that. BTW they never sold them just leased them.

Yeah, when gas is six dollars a gallon, the small efficient engines will come. Another thing to keep in mind is that in Europe, diesel cars don't have a bad reputation like in America, which inflates the European numbers quite a bit. However, a 30mpg gas and 40mpg diesel put out similar amounts of CO2 (if someone wants to back me up here, please do), so it really makes no difference in that sense. Also, the Western hemisphere cares about cars much more than Europe.

One thing I would look at is the car's safety. I think (again, think) that the US and Canadian cars have more stringent safety requirements, and with good reason, the cars are a lot bigger here, so crashing into one is much more serious.

DrRoboto:

What will you be doing in the Air Force?

Importing cool cars, what else? :)

Personally, I've got a hankering for a Toyota Sera. The Mazda AZ-1 (Autozam) isn't bad, either. I guess I dig gull wings.

Colin