Shipping US to UK: Part 2

I’m going to go backwards a bit here, but only briefly. Bear with me.

Having dropped my 911 at Able Cargo in Los Angeles on October 5th, we flew back to the UK and waited for more info. On the 16th of October, I got an email from Able to say that the car would sail to Tilbury via the Dominican Republic on the 31st: Halloween. That is when the tracking started and you have read those posts by now.

My last mention of the car on the blog was the pics of the Sormiou in Rotterdam. The ship stayed for a day and a bit, before sailing for London on the Saturday. It made the UK quickly enough, but then anchored off Harwich overnight – I guess the dockers do not work overtime at weekends. On Sunday it sailed up the Thames and docked at Tilbury (pic). The Varmint had landed!

I was off work all that week, so got stuck into putting some projects to bed before the 911 came home. I put the little Land Cruiser back together and that is now MOTed and legal (pic), just about to transfer the numberplate off it and it will then be sold. The Corrado is sold and is about to go.

I had been chasing Kingstown Shipping about paying the duty while the car was on the sea, so I could have it ready to be picked up as soon as it arrived. In the end, I didn’t get a VAT bill until the Wednesday, and the car did not unload at Chatham until the Thursday, so it looked like I wasn’t going to have it home before the weekend.

Kingstown said that they couldn’t have sent me the bill any earlier, as they had to wait until the car had actually landed in the UK and gone on to the Customs website. Once I knew that I was a bit happier; communication is where it’s at, but there are no FAQs anywhere about this stuff. In the end, Kingstown released the Porsche to me before the VAT transfer cleared, so last Friday I drove to Chatham Freight Station and picked it up.

I was a little nervy walking across the floor to the car, but it all looked the same and started first time. I was smiling ear to ear. Doug’s guys had done a great job packing it up and I will definitely use them again. Varmint had brought some California sunshine with it – it was a really beautiful day – so I drove it out front and strapped it to my A-frame, ready for the ride home and the next step of its great European adventure.

Tagged as: 911, 911SC: The Varmint, buying, Porsche, shipping