Importing a Land Rover Defender 90 or110 into the United States?
Good luck. In a nutshell, you can only import a vehicle to the United States that is
- over 25 years old
- or on the NHTSA import list.
If it's the latter, you are in for some major PITA. It'll need to be brought in through a Registered Importer and readed for EPA and DOT certification. That means modifications and that means cash.
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The Landrover defender 110 NAS. You can has, for a price. Image wikipedia.org
A landrover 120 diesel You no can has. Image wikipedia.org |
So you are looking at a land rover defender 90 or 110 for sale, and you want to know if it's legal?
You'll need to open the drivers door and look for the NHTSA/DOT plate that reads: "This vehicle conforms to all applicable Federal Motor Safty Standards, blah blah blah." If you don't see that, you need to call the DOT with the VIN.
The best resource for information on Land Rover imports
A company called East Coast Rovers builds Land Rover Defenders, Series, Discovery I and IIs for action. They've also been importing older rovers for a long time. They are very free with information they've gained in the process:
Have a look at this little tidbit:
"Also, just as a side note... The last time we looked into importation and bringing in more Defenders... you know who shut us down on that? Land Rover North America. They don't want any more Defenders in the USA and they did everything in their power to shut us down. Luckily we don't do anything illegal so they couldn't, but they did try."
Read the rest of what they have to say about importing a Defender.
FAQs
Why doesn't Land Rover sell the Defender in the US?
Because in 1998 regulations requiring air bags and side impact standards went into affect. Land Rover decided they couldn't upgrade the Defender to meet those requirements.
Were there any tdi or td5 diesel Defenders imported into the United States?
No all Defenders legaly imported into the united states were 3.9L v8s or 4.0L v8s.
Only 535 Defender 110s were imported into the US.
They were all white.
They are all badass.