The chassis is FINALLY here...

It's been a rocky trip for my clubman chassis. First it was delayed in England due to poor weather (i.e. the physically couldn't get the cargo to the docks!!).

It was smooth sailing to Australia from the UK and then the hassles with Customs and the Department of Transport started. This is actually quite funny and the problem seemed to be Customs and not the DOT. An application was made to Customs to have the chassis brought in as car parts (which it obviously is). However Customs decided in their infinite wisdom that it was in fact a car and demanded that I have approval in the form of a permit from the DOT to import a car.

Now these permits fall under two categories, one is for people moving back to Australia wanting to also bring back their car they've owned for 12+ months. And the second is for racing purposes, under a CAMs C3 license and with proof of what competitive races it will be used for. Both of which I am not eligible for although I could probably wrangle the one for racing. This however takes three weeks minimum and with the cargo in port and me going on my honeymoon next week, both no good...

After a many calls the DOT advised me of a Customs policy that stated a car can be imported as parts as long as there is no running gear (i.e. axles, wheels, engine and gearbox). Great! I dont have any of that stuff, so I called Customs to inform them of their OWN policy. Nope, they want it in writing from the DOT. Wtf?! Yep I triple asked and as stupid as it sounds they wanted their own policy in writing from another government body. Hilarious!

So I complied and to my dismay, they actually got upset that I apparently went over their heads to the DOT (who can overrule Customs) to have them approve it. So they decided to make things more difficult by going over everything else with a fine toothed comb (e.g. why only two items in the invoice had a price).

So after a few more emails and confirmations all was well in getting the goods released. There was one last issue in getting the goods moved to my property, the truck was too small and a crane truck was required. This delayed delivery again and meant a bit more time off from work :-(

I must say though that Ozzy the shipping agent was awesome and helped me through this process and really did go out of his way to get everything done. He even paid for the crane truck when that wasn't officially part of the included shipping costs!! You're a champ Ozzy, expect something in the mail soon...

Anyways, I've probably bored you a bit now. So I've also included some pictures of the delivery! And the rotary engine that's going to be used for the car... ~180kw, ~220nm and ~600kg The math is good...