Importing Ducati's myself

[killa]

Speaking to my sisters new bloke a week ago he mentioned that in his younger days he used to go off to Italy with a friend, pick up brand new Alfa Spiders and bring them to the UK. He said he would usually make at least two grand on these as they were very sought after cars then.
He didn't do it a lot, usually in the summer he did two trips, which was four cars.

It gave me the idea that i could do this but with Ducati's.
I haven't thought about all the finer details yet and needed some help/advice on whether im going to have a miserable time doing it.
I was thinking if i flew over there picked up the bike and got it back to UK registered, taxed and tested, i'd still make money due to the price differences. Not sure where to start to get this all worked out so im asking BCF to help me out.
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[CarlosCBR]

Wait until the pound gets much stronger. Exchange rates are shit at the moment and i doubt you would make much to make it worthwhile. The Euro is still quite strong so wait until the recession is a distant memory and go for it!

[barnhatter]

Out of interest is their a price difference. Their used to be when Parallel inports were a big idea but I thought that the price differential had closed now, and with the weak pound against the euro you might find that you end up losing on the deal.

[killa]

I was thinking that the exchange rate wouldn't matter so much as the bikes themselves are cheaper from Italy.
Im currently trying to find some figures to compare but im struggling.
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[Wafer_Thin_Ham]

You'd probably be better off going the other way the exchange rates are at the moment.

This may well have worked 5 years ago, not now though.
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[MarJay]

I travel to italy a bit with work and the italians can't afford ducatis they are too expensive.
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[Kickstart]

Hi

I suspect you will really struggle now to make any money at all at it.

Motociclismo is a large Italian bike magazine. They used to have all the prices in there but they don't appear to be on their web site. Might be worth getting hold of a copy, and might be worth trying The Magazine Man (he doesn't list it on his web site, just Motociclismo D'Epoca which is an Italian classic bike magazine but I think he has said he can get it).

However looking round www.Ebay.it the prices of recent new bikes appear to be higher than here.

Going back 20 years the pre tax prices might well have been lower in Italy. At the time VAT there was 19%, or 38% on bikes over 350cc / cars over 2L, and you could claim that back if exporting.

All the best

Keith
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[killa]

LOL

Well, that killed it.

Back to being poor...
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[robbieguy2003]

I was looking at something slightly different to this, basically I *may* move to the states in the next 6 or so months.

It's still up for debate but I was looking at certain things, as I'd need to ship quite a lot of stuff over. One of those things was going to be my bike.

However, looking at the prices of bikes over there I'd sell it and just get one;

Heres some examples from a dealer;

https://www.1infastfun.com/caradz/index.php

Even with the rate sucking at the moment it's still considerably cheaper than the UK.

For your venture though the issue would be the logistics and imports, I suspect this would take most of the margin you'd make straight back out, even if it was on a decent scale.
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[SamJL]

People were picking up brand new 08 CBR1000RR's before March for around $7000 from dealers in the US
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[killa]

The idea was to pick up the bike over there and ride it back same day.
Initially i thought if i picked a 1098 up for say 18.500 Euros (16.3572 Pounds) it would get roughly £20.000 over here.
I think a flight, registering, fuel and MOT wouldn't be anything near that. If im being a little generous here, even a gain of £1500-2000 would be worth it.
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[DrDonnyBrago]

The worst that can happen is you end up with a shiny new ducati

Get all the info sorted out, see where you stand and give it a go!

[rac3r]

[rac3r]

I forgot to mention you probably won't be able to sell it at the same price as a dealer, it will have to be a decent amount less
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[Bishbash]

Hang on, wasn't there some massive story on something similar to this, but where the Europeans were coming here to buy cheap bikes and shipping them back to their country to make profit? Or has that changed now?

Saying that has anyone seen the article on dealers buying 2nd hand bikes? They seem to be paying quite a lot of dosh on 2nd hand bikes due to lack of availability. I think it was in MCN, I will try to find a link.
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