grey market cars worth less? Options

[tommyg]

I know that in the 911 community, grey market cars generally have less value than US spec autos. I don't see them too often in the 914 community, but i was looking over a nice black 914 from socal on OC craigslist, but it appears to be a grey market car. Does that make it less valuable?

sorry if posting in the wrong spot, but i thought those who are looking to buy/sell would have the best insights...

[914-8]

"Grey market" would mean a non-US model that was privately imported into the US. Usually a European model.

So it would be kinda cool to see here, with the little differences (no sidemarkers, etc.).

Like McMark says, these cars weren't super high cost, so people probably didn't privately import them very often. But there probably are some here, imported from military guys, etc.

Grey market imports were biggest in the early to mid-80s. That was mainly because of the exchange rate and the strength of the US dollar at the time. Buying a Euro model in Germany with US dollars was cheap, you could spend money traveling to Germany to get the car, sending it back, getting it converted to US standards, and still come out ahead.

During that time there were also a lot of models that were not officially imported into the US (911 Turbo, M635, etc.)

And the Euro versions typically had more power.

Generally it's harder to sell a grey market used car, so it's value is lower. A lot of "conversion" shops sprung up (and disappeared) in the 80s and a lot of them did very shoddy conversion work - cobbled together exhausts and emissions, etc. I worked at a shop in the 80's and we saw lots of really bad greys. They were somewhat hard to work on, because you never really knew how or why they were modified.

Getting the car smogged can be an issue. Insurance can sometimes be an issue. Most buyers don't want to deal with it, so your pool of potential buyers is smaller.

Those are all still issues with, say, an '86 Mercedes. Not so much with an old 914.