What's the deal registering a 250 California in Europe?
 

Getting quite a few EU enquiries so just wondering what the deal is registering a Tribute in Europe - anyone had any experience?

I sold a couple of bikes to a French buyer, when he came to collect he had Citroen Lomax on a trailer he was taking back. He bought quite a few Lomax cars and just bought the bikes to fill up his remaining space. He would only buy Lomax's that were registered as Lomax's on the V5 otherwise he couldn't register them in France.
A friend who lives in Paris imported a BMW motorcycle from the UK but had to have it inspected before it could be registered. All lights and lenses have to be "E" marked, his were so he thought he would have no problem. However the lenses were E marked but had the wrong numbers on them! He had to borrow a complete set of lenses for the indicators and brake lens from a French bike to get it registered and then swap them back.
It obviously depends on the country but to try and register in France or Spain is very hard work if not impossible. I have seen a couple of kit cars for sale on Ebay where they are being sold as they cannot be registered in Spain or France.

Chris has a builder in Belgium, he has a build thread, maybe worth an E-mail, probably knows the rules much better.

I think the Lomax might be one of the kits that is recognised as a kit in France ...I think the 7 type kits are easier to register too ..again , recognised , as in Caterham etc. When we first started the S*mmio's it was a problem. The conversion wasn't recognised . One of my first French buyers was taking the cars into Belgium and doing them there , as it was a lot easier .
The German examples , I believe , are being left registered as Triumph Heralds , I don't think that buyer wants anything that says S*mmio on them ...this can cause issues later on , re-sale etc...I believe ..

It is a minefield ...The problem now is most of the V5c's will say BMW then the model Tribute Kali / 250 whatever ...when they try to access that BMW model on their databases , it won't acknowledge it as a valid BMW model ...

I've seen plenty of kit cars whilst on my travels around Europe. Most have been traditional kits with bespoke chassis etc. Thinking about it , I have seen more in Germany than France but I did see a French registered Dax Cobra last year. I've also seen quite a few cars with modified body work, body kits, wide arches, spoilers etc . I really don't know about re bodied cars but I would think its possible if you know which forms to fill in . I've two sold UK registered kit cars to Germany but that was quite a few years ago, the buyers were quite happy to take them and didn't ask any questions.

Thanks for replies - one from Spain and one from Germany at moment plus 2 UK.

AND 5 registered in the Netherlands