If anyone is considering an overseas purchase I would like to give you a run down of my recent experience. After ten years of pestering Johannes Ditz to sell me his S1 #460202, he finally relented. The negotiations were amicable and we were both satisfied with the details.
The first upset in the shipping process occurred with the wire transfer of funds. My bank established their "spot rate" which was an exchange rate much higher than the actual USD/Euro rate at the time which resulted in a loss for me of about $900.00.
The actual shipping had it's struggles with documentation exchanges, customs and so on but the greatest pain was the agony of the wait. From Johannes' door to mine took three months and five days. The most anxious periods were those spent in the ports. In Rotterdam we waited for 18 days to load the car and in San Francisco it took 26 days to unload, clear customs and do the three hour ground transport to my house!
Though I paid for enclosed transport and was assured that the car would always be in either the warehouse or the container, it obviously spent some time out in the weather. There was no significant damage as far as I can tell other than the dead battery which they failed to disconnect.
All told the shipping cost me about $9,400.00 and allot of stress and some sleepless nights. It was worth the trouble and the wait however
