The most important step is to start with a good foundation. I was looking for a donor car for a few month now. I have been monitoring the used car sales, private listings on Kijiji as well as local Mustang club. One thing was obvious. Good stuff does not cost cheap. So I turned my attention to auctions selling off cars after collisions. Now the prices were in my comfort zone. I was recommended to look into Copart. And frankly that's where I spent a lot of time. However, not that may cars were in Canada. I mainly was looking at the near by US states. I saw a 2001 Cobra sell for about $3500 and a Mach 1 for $1500. My expectations were that Mustang GT would cost me about a $1000 give or take. I have been recommended a business that can buy and deliver the car for me. The obvious advise I got is to look near by and not as far as US. Mustangs are very common and I should be able to buy one locally and save a lot on shipping. Thus, my new search place is Impact Auto. It did not take me long to find the car I want. The night before auction I dropped off my deposit and was waiting for the results.
In the morning I was 200% confident that by next Friday I would have a Mustang in my garage. But I was missing a small detail: Canadians don't value their own money. The auction began and almost in seconds the price went over my maximum $2000 mark. In the end, US car imported into Canada and with a front collision in nondrivable condition sold for $3350. Did I mention that SVT Cobra sold for that much in US? Well, a normal response would be: "but you get cheaper shipping". True, I would have saved about $500 on shipping but it still does not justify another $1500.
The bottom line is this, we are looking at the US manufactured car sold in two neighboring countries where the currency is at almost the same value. The laws allow for US sold cars to be imported and registered in Canada. In fact, we have a free trade agreement that allows for US manufactured goods enter Canada with out duties. There are some paper work and associated fees but they are not excessive by any standards.
Moreover, this Canadian willingness to overpay stands true for new cars too. For instance, 2013 Boss 302 is starting from $48,799 in Toronto and after 1.5 hour drive, $42,200 in Buffalo. That's about $7000 just for getting speedometer to show kilometer numbers bigger than miles.
Yesterday was supposed to be a great leap forward for my project. However, it was a day of realization of a sad fact. Once again I find myself looking over the border.
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