Back to Work I go :-(

SON240sx Automotive SON240sx Off Topic
1

Well guys, I’m off to work! The holidays are over, no more doing whatever I want and posting on SON almost everyday.

I’m leaving the island tonight, I’m taking the ship to Athens and from there I will be flying to England where I will be in London for a few days where I will be visiting a few dealers in London, Brighton, Manchester, Birmingham and Dover.

From England I will be crosing the English channel to France, I have to visit a dealer in Paris (this guy is Canadian!). Then down to a dealer in Dijon, and from there, I head south to see a dealer in Lyon, and from there I will visit a new dealer in Avignon and then I will drive east over to Nice to relax for a few days (I love that place).

From Nice I’m flying to Luxembourg and then drive to Brussels, then Hamburg, then Copenhagen and then Stockholm Sweden!!! (I have never been to Sweden before) From there I might be going to Helsinki Finland (not shure about that one yet). From either Stockholm or Helsinki I will be flying to Vienna to visit 2 more dealers, then I will be flying to Belgrade Serbia to visit a new customer and then back to Athens!

So I will not be posting for about a month! Unless I get some free time.

For those who don’t know what I have been doing for a living in the past 2 years:

I am an independent import automobile broker. We import vehicles from USA and some from Canada and sell them to dealers in Europe.
Believe it or not there is a market here for high end American cars! People that want to have something different are willing to pay good money for an Ameican vehicle. People here are tired of the same old shit just like the way we are tired of the crap we have there.
Our vehicles are all under 3 years old and the cars we have most requests for are Cadillac Escalade’s, GMC Yukon Denali’s, Hummer H2’s and H3’s (we did import an H1 for one guy!), we also import Corvettes, Dodge vipers and we also imported a Trans am Convertable, a Camaro SS and a few mustangs as well as one of those crap-ass-bring-back-fail Thunderbirds. We get the odd customer out here who wants something totally weird like a Ford F150 or a Dodge Ram with daulies lol. Then again we had a guy last September who ordered a 1970 Chevelle SS, the guy spent over $50,000 USD for this car. We bought it for him in Arizona.
Imagine that, you are on the autobahn you see all these porches, ferraries, lotus’s and then you see a 1970 Chevelle SS and your like WTF?

The dealer tells us what they want, we find the car, we send pics, vids etc. if the dealer wants it we take a 50% deposit, a contract is made and signed, we buy the car, we ship it, we do the paper work required. Sometimes we ship the car right to their dealership if not then I got to go to the nearest port and I pick it up my self and drive it over, sometimes it’s not worth shipping if it’s close to a port. (it takes away from the profit). When the cars arives to the dealer we receive the rest of the money and that closes the deal!

Our profit is in the difference between the price we buy it at and the price we sell it at. Now importing a vehicle into Europe you get taxed up the ass here, so before we settle on a sell price we calculate the import tax plus cost of shipping etc. we then mark it up and sell it.

I buy my cars from 2 independent brokers from NYC that my cousin in NYC introduced me to and they buy cars from all over USA and Canada. Most of them come from Manheim auto auction and they are lease returns and repos from dealers in USA. I tell them what the dealers in Europe want, they find the car, I send the info to the dealer, I negotiate the price and finalize the deal.

Good things about this job: You get to travel a lot and see places you would never see, you get to drive cool cars, the money is good and you make lot’s of connections.

Bad things about this job: When things go bad… they realy go bad! You could lose a lot of money and time if you deal with idiots, not everyone speaks english so sometimes language can be a barrier, sometimes you have to put up with lot’s of bullshit paperwork due to importing. Putting out fires is not fun, when a car leaves USA mint and it get’s to the dealer in Europe damaged.

Anyway guys I got to run, I will check in every now and then when I get a chance. I will be back in Greece in about a month or so. I just can’t wait to come back to Canada damn it. Yeah I never thought I would say those words but I miss Canada. The problem is I miss Canada but then whe I come back I get bored of Canada in like a week lol.

I hope I don’t miss out on anything good. Take care guys, drive safe and just remember sliding around on the snow is not considered drifting and neither is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h44vLYfOuM4&feature=related

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Damn, thats a fun job! I would love to travel that much. Probably gets exhausting though.

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Yeah it was fun the first year, now that I have been to just about everywhere in Europe, it’s not that fun anymore, now I’m just here for the money. It does get exhausting, sometimes I feel like I’m in “The Amazing Race” it’s like make the flight, then make another flight, do this and that, take the train, take a cab, do this and that, rent a car, go somewhere and do this and that, leave it at the airport, take another flight, take a cab go do this and that, take another flight, rent a car, go do this and that, then take the ship, then take a cab go here and there, go to the airport take another flight, rent a car, go do this and that, make the train, go here and there, and well you get the picture.
There are someplaces that are so beautiful and I don’t get the time to fully see them so every time I go I have to see a little at a time. I have been to Paris 3 times I have only went sight seeing once for like an hour. I went to Rome twice, I saw nothing! I flew in took the cab to where I had to go, did my job and flew out 4 hours later. Only when I have time I rent a car so I can drive around and see a few things.
This time I will get a chance to see England because I get a car as soon as I get to London and I am driving to all the places I need to go.
The thing that sucks about England is that everytime I pull out of a parking lot or something, I always forget they drive on the left and I have a bad habbit of going for the right lane LOL …I almost got into an accident there last time. I went straight for the right lane when I made a left turn and there was aguy coming straight for me, I was lucky he was far so I had enough time to get into the left lane.
Driving in paris sucks, the roads are so confusing if you don’t have a navigation system your screwed there.
I like driving in Austria, Germany, Italy and Greece. Right now I’m at the internet cafe waiting for the ship to arrive to take me to Athens so I still have about an hour to kill. I think I’m gonna play some Command and conquer Generals “Zero Hour” It’s old but I love that game.