Gallardo for less than $100G's?

I have a perfect 2004 manual U.S. Gallardo for you with only (3300 miles) 5300 KILOMETERS.

 

You and 300+ other guys!

Have you seen all the Gallardos for sale on cars.com, autotrader.com, eBay.com, DupontRegistry.com, etc.?!

 

I'm serious about this. If there is a business case I will go ahead; whether I have the cash to do it one car at a time or whether my business partner and I will find a business angel willing to invest $1.5 million to get us a small fleet of 10 cars over to Europe, I don't know. Either way, it could be a low-risk business: what's the worst that can happen? Having to dump unsold cars at European "shark dealer prices", with perhaps a 10% loss on the acquisition price? I mean, the basic business model seems to suggest a worst case scenario -10% loss, and a best case scenario +30% return on investment before taxes, and that would define a "safe" investment for me.

Besides, it's not only Gallardos - the same price differential is there for Murcielagos, LP640, Gallardo Spyders and also for "fashionable" things like the Bentley Continental: as much as I dislike that car, you won't find one here at less than $180K (and fairly high mileage too), while I found plenty around $110K in the USA.

So, anyone want to do business? Once I move to the USA in the summer I'll start working on this. Could be a fun little side-business.

 

I think quite a few of these ads are just for generating sales leads.

 

Ken you have made numerous comments regarding Gallardos in Canada. Is it not possible to bring up a US G? I appologize for not using the search function

 

It's more like 70%. No Doubt is dreaming if he thinks there are 300+ cars being sold.

 

Export/Import deals are not as easy at it would seem. In Switzerland, a used Gallardo might sell for $200K US. You could buy US models for $125K and spend another $17K (according to your estimates) shipping and importing. In the end, you will have at least $142K into a car that may be worth $155K-$165K. Lots of work and risk for a little money, IMHO.

When you sell a US car in Switzerland, "value" will be determined by the value of other US cars. We go through the same thing here in Canada. Canadian market cars are generally valued on par with other Canadian market cars. US market cars are valued based on what it would cost someone to go buy and import a similar US market car.

 

I believe that by making a "bulk buy" (let's say 3 Gallardos together) we could get them at $110K each. At $160K they will sell in 24 hours in Switzerland. We'll do some marketing, and if we have any firm orders (e.g. someone giving us a small deposit) we'll go ahead. My friend already did this for a couple of Murcielagos - he sourced the cars in the middle east, imported them (actually one of the clients asked him to fly his car in to have it sooner!), went through all the import paperwork and at the end he made a neat profit (I believe about $30K on each car). Obviously it helped that he had the customers ready upfront. That's what I would aim to have, before committing any money.

 

Where do we find a "bulk buy" on used Gallardos?

 

I was thinking of buying from the big nation-wide dealer networks that (may) have a few floating Gallardos around the country. Make an offer on all of them, and the price will go down. The same works for the Bentley Continental GT - the Chicago Bentley dealer has loads of them at around 110/120K. Buy 4 of them and the price should be highly negotiable.

 

Sounds very risky. Even if a bulk buy were possible, such a deal on used exotic cars isn't like buying 4 brand new Honda Civics. Every used exotic out there is unique in pedigree and condition.

With that said, there are plenty of guys out there that make good money in the import/export business.

 

why not try it with 1 car? seems like the overall risk is relatively low and if it works then scale up the # of cars you buy and sell in Switzerland. worst case you are out maybe $20,000 as you can always sell the car for close to what you paid for it here in the US.

 

Sounds like sage advice.

 

I agree, and that's what I will do. The multi-car business would only happen if an investor were willing to put money into it (but then our share of the profits would also be much smaller).

 

If you are thinking about luxury motors, I'd make sure to look at the cars, test drive and ppi them before anything. Its rumoured that they buy alot of their inventory from auctions. I twice had bad experiences with them. First car I bought from them was totally misrepresented and it cost me about 10 grand to fix it up. I was stupid enough to buy another one from them a year later. They sent me the wrong car and after various discounts and such to entice me to keep the car they misplaced the title. They're a bunch of screwups and Ill never buy anything from them again.

-Peter Oh

 

it was me man! I bring up probably between 5 to 10 cars a month from the states and would love nothing more then for lambo's to come up here but not quite yet however there is a proposal in the works with transport canada to change the rules on that which is very exciting news but not great for the cdn owners that paid retail for the same car that after duty/shipping etc will be about $50,000 cheaper!(gallardo's and lp640's in particular)

 

Also my old boss used to import mini-vans 20-30 at a time to Switzerland in the early 90's and would make a killing on them of course he had a swiss partner with a lot over etc but apparently never had ANY problems selling cdn minivans over there, the way i look at it is if the car checks out ok and you can save your self XXXX amount of dollars, why the hell wouldn't I?

 

nothing yet buddy believe me as soon as it's possible i'll have 20 gallardo's on there way!

 

where are you moving to here in the US?

anyway - this sounds fun/interesting/potentially profitable. when you get here post in the thread again if you are still looking at this.

 

Today while having lunch with my architect I found he sold his Gallardo last week for 97K I was shocked and asked why so low, he said he had to sell it so let it go. I imagine many people are in his shoes at this time.

 

what were the miles on the car? i assume he sold it to a dealer and not a private party?