Ages ago, I wrote an open letter to Kim Beasley. It was in order to keep a law going to allow the open slather importing of vehicles, mostly from Japan, aged 15 years old or more.

This law was setup because they, the Liberal government, thought it would put an end to the slew of Silvias and Skylines on the roads. Well it didnt. In their finite wisdom, they forgot to check that most of the cool cars of the moment (Nissans: 300zxs, Silvias, Skylines, GTRs; Mazda MX5s and the first of the VTEC Hondas) all came out in 1989-1990, you guessed fifteen years ago.

Well my letter was in vain. The law was abolished and now they’ve decided only cars made up to and before 1988 can be imported open slather. Bugger.

There are two poignant facts we have to live with now this rule is over. First, there was a bit of insanity in the 15yo rule. It was making fast and unreliable, twin turbo cars affordable to dramatically more people. Some nutter chick a while back bought a twin turbo Nissan 300zx coupe on her 18th birthday. She pretty much got straight on the Western Ring Road in Melbourne and put the right clog to the floor and was doing 240kph by the time the cameras caught her. Now in anyone’s language, that’s just insane.

In a strange way, i’m kinda glad it’s over. There are far better ways for societies fuckknuckles to kill themselves. No need to waste a perfectly good car over them.

Secondly, when you look at the import sites now, there really aren’t that many cars to crow about. J-Spec are trying to push the V35 Skyline and more kosher, SEVs compliable motors. These cars are kinda cute, but not worth getting wet over. You can tell that most of them are just trade-ins from Nissan dealers. There not exactly straight out of a tuning shop or some hot rodder’s garage. You’d be better off now buying a locally delivered and manufacterd Ford Falcon XR6 Turbo.

High Performance Imports magazine are of the opinion that since the late 90s, Japan have given up on the turbo performance market, and it’s becoming more and more self evident in the import yards. What’s left of the import motors will be run into the ground by anyone that can get their hands on them though, that’s for sure.

Then there’s the final nail in the coffin. www.yahoomotorsport.com, seem to have gone on a huge arsed binge and bought every last 15yo import they can get their hands on. His holding yard in suburban Adelaide, must look like a refugee detention centre for unloved Japanese cars. In their current stock, rust is rife and high kilometres a-plenty. I’m not dissing Yahoo motorsport though, they seem to be very much ‘what you see is what you get’, but is it worth the getting any more? Sadly no.