European Union Forums

[MichaelWRuiz]

I would like to travel to Germany and buy a Porsche GT3 and drive on the autobhan then ship the car back to the states to drive here. What is the cheapest way to do this?

[LoriRSanchez]

Get a real big row boat.
If time will not allow that check cruise lines and see if they can help.
If you are picking it up at the factory they may have a package deal that includes the shipping either by air or boat.

[LydiaSDunn]

Getting there wouldn't be a problem, you could always get on a ship, and become a stow-away.
Where you will run into money is having the car shipped back. It will cost quite a bit to have it shipped here, plus, you will have to pay a luxory tax on the car, and that could run you some cash.

[LarryIBynum]

I'm not sure there is a cheap way to Europe. Don't land in France, they are some real horses rear-ends.

[LoriMPerron]

walk / swim. Contact a shady car dealer for the buy. Buy twelve 44 gallon drums, seal them properly. lash the car to the drums and swim back towing the drumss/car.

Cheap but crap question if you can afford to buy a GT3.

[FortunateSpear]

Join the military and pray you get stationed there. Then when you transfer back to the states they will pay to move one vehicle back from overseas. Just hope your new car passes U.S. inspections.

[Catcher]

The criteria you have is going to make it difficult to cut costs. The car itself will need to be ordered from a US Dealer with the European Delivery option. You could plan to buy a car in Europe, but while you could save on the actual purchase price due to exchange rates and different pricing in some locales, you would far exceed this in trying to get your Euro car approved for us in the US. So, on the car side, you need to order a new car from a dealer and there will not be any options to really save money here.

Which means the primary spot where you could try and save would be on the travel expenses of getting yourself to and from Europe. The most likely route here would be to place the order for the GT3, and then shop around for the best travel prices and hotel prices for the period you'll be in Europe to pick up the car. No real secret, just compare and buy as early as possible.

Though, you could take a gamble... if you were to wait until the last minute to book, you may luck into some very inexpensive options (if you sign up with any airlines to get notice of last minute specials, you'll see European destinations and travel/hotel packages are common, if you can leave within a few days notice - often due to underbooked packages that they are now trying to fill up to make the most of their investment). But this is a gamble since you will not have much flexibility in getting the car. So if you were to gamble on this, you could save alot, but it would also be possible that you would instead pay alot more to secure a last minute fare (or worse, simply not be able to find an option for the time you need).

In the end, the difference between "cheap" and "normal" would come out to as much as one to two thousand dollars... which is not small, unless you consider that you are talking about $110K+ for the car, and a few thousand more per person in travel... and if you are going that far you will probably enjoy the whole experience more if you let loose with the purse strings and spend a little extra to make it a nice vacation.

[Elias]

The cheapest way to do this is to actually purchase the car here in the US, ship it over to europe and drive it there for a while, then ship it back. shipping costs will prob run you about 5k total.

cars are pretty much at their cheapest here in the US. Especially with the euro being so strong right now. Dunno about how to go about legalizing it in europe for a short stint, but id imagine it wouldnt be particularly easy. Bringing one into the US would be a pain too.

before you go on any autobahn high speed terror run though, you really should probably take a driving school or two and get the car control skills needed for such an event.

[Eldwin]

Well because I don't live across the Atlantic, I live in Kuwait and in End of December or First Week of January I'll be travelling to Germany to take my Porsche 911 GT2 (997) myself and I am gonna drive it all the way back to Kuwait and going through the roads of europe is like a Dream for me I mean the Tuscan Hills in Italy are jus awsome and the Autobahn is a drivers heaven.

[Denley]

if you are serious about owning a nice porsche i have a 2003 911 carrera .......email me for more info...it will save you alot of $$.....im located in ohio

[AaronWBoyd]

id either take the mid-atlantic tunnel to France n drive from there(this would require a companion or 2, unless ur gonna leave ur car in Europe, which if its a bad car I would, because its Europe who cares), or maybe swim, once u get past the sharks and whales itll be okay, maybe even theyll let u hitch a ride which would be excellent...or maybe hijack a ferry or cruiseliner and just take that there, but thats sorta illegal and dangerous...

best of luck!

[Ebenezer]

Not being a communist or anything, but what does it concern you if you are buying such a vehicle?