Nissan 300zx with Japanese plates on I40

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Tue Sep 25, 2018 10:03 pm

I saw something interesting on my drive home today (I40). It was a silver second generation (Z32) 300ZX turbo with Japanese license plates on both the front and back (no other plates on the car). Car was right hand drive and was badged Fairlady Z. Is this a brave soul driving a JDM import with illegal tags, or is there maybe a provision to import a car and drive it legally on foreign tags for a short period of time? Similar to driving a Canadian or Mexican register car in the US?

Traffic was heavy, but I tried to take a few photos. I may post them tomorrow if they are not blurry.

Richard

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Wed Sep 26, 2018 9:23 am

Car appears to have an Okinawa plate. US Serviceman's car?

Donnie Barnes · **Posted:** Wed Sep 26, 2018 9:17 pm

Possible. Pretty much any Hawaii plate you see in the continental US is a US serviceman, too. I'd be a little surprised if a Japanese plate is legal here like that, but it's possible.

--Donnie

Michael Westerfield · **Posted:** Thu Sep 27, 2018 3:11 pm

Virginia has interesting plate allowances if it is considered an antique and used as a show car. Maybe NC has something similar?

Chad Culbertson · **Posted:** Thu Sep 27, 2018 3:25 pm

I saw a Citroen based RV in SC in August with European plates on it.

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Fri Sep 28, 2018 4:39 pm

Thanks for the comments. I spent a few minutes trying to find an online source to see what laws might cover this. I was finding some people saying there is a provision for people to bring a car over from overseas for a short period of time. Like if they wanted to ship a car from Europe and drive in the US for vacation and then ship it back. But the general suggestions was its just cheaper to rent a car. Maybe a few are crazy enough (or rich enough) to do this.

So it sounds like there might be a temporary allowance made, but in general it would need to go through the usual import and registration process.

Richard

Donnie Barnes · **Posted:** Mon Oct 01, 2018 10:47 am

The only weird allowance I know of is that NC allows you to run stamped year plates of the year of your car *instead* of your real plate, if your car is old enough to date back to stamped metal plates (makes it an antique, but I forget what the last year is...it's in the 70's).

So I have a vintage 1969 plate on my 1969 912 that is NOT what's on my registration. I have a normal plate for the car and I keep it in the car, along with a printout of the statute that allows for this, since some LEOs don't know that law and if they punch in your plate, it ain't showing up and you ARE getting pulled.

--Donnie

Arthur McDonald · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 1:54 am **Posts:** 2052

Donnie Barnes wrote:

but I forget what the last year is...it's in the 70's).
--Donnie

My first NC license plate, which I got in 1978, was stamped "75".

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Nissan 300zx with Japanese plates on I40

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