Shipping a US 996 to Europe

I'm being relocated to Europe, initially the UK, for a year or so and I'm looking at shipping my 996 cab with me. Anyone got any experience of shipping a car to Europe from the US? My preference is to ship by air as I'm on the west coast although I'd be interested in sea shipping experiences/costs too. Any advice welcome. Graham

A bunch of us from the Seattle area shipped our Porsches to Europe to drive on race tracks in the 5 years from 1994 through 1998 (4 cars in '94, 10 in '95, 4 in '96, 8 in '97 and 1 in '98). The first year we put the cars in a container, trucked them to the east coast and then shipped them to Amsterdam. The next year the cars were held up in New York because one car had an incorrect digit on its registration and we missed the boat and would have missed the tracks, so the cars were air freighted to Frankfurt. After that we always air freighted over from Seattle to Frankfurt (one year to London) and came back by boat directly to the port of Tacoma, except for the last year where the car (only one car that year) was returned by air freight to get back in time for a race (the only time we took a race car). The reason we usually returned by boat was that it was much cheaper about $1,800 (includes about $800 insurance) versus about $4,800 (includes about $300 insurance I think) by air, and because there weren't many track events or autocrosses left in the year by October (we always went over in the middle of September). When picking up our cars in Europe we had to produce notarized copies of the title and registration as well as proof of liability insurance in Europe (green car) when dealing with customs. I think the process took three copies of the title and registration to get there and back. We typically obtained the green cards at the ADAC in Germany (equivalent to AAA) with offices everywhere for about $100 to $150 for a month. It was much more in England but the covereage is for all of Europe, so we had someone get the green cards in Germany the one year we shipped to England (they had to have copies of all the tiles with them and they just happened to be going to Germany first). We did not have any other kind of coverage except for one person (retired military officer) who was able to get USAA insurance for about $150 that covered everything, including shipping. It's important to bring a spare key as a key has to go with the car and mine was lost once (I had a spare with me). The cars were always shipped by Lufthansa when they went from Seattle and we made all the arrangements ourselves instead of paying a broker. We tried to set up return arrangements in 1998 through Lufthansa before we left, but while Lufthansa was very helpful in Seattle, Lufthansa in Germany, Particularly Frankfurt, has a very arrogant attitude and we had to use a broker. We used Kamino (http://www.kamino.com/index.shtml) which has offices in both Seattle and Frankfurt, as well as many other places, and saved our butts for a reasonable fee. I would probably use them both going over and back. We had the cars inspected by U.S. Customs (office right in the air freight area at Sea-Tac) and they imprinted our documents. This made the documents look more official and tended to smooth things both exporting, in Europe and on return. For returning the cars we used E.H. Harms (the company that handles the shipment of Euro delivery BMWs to the U.S. <a href="http://www.ehharms.com/)" target="_blank">http://www.ehharms.com/)</a> for roll-on roll-off shipping (cars driven on and fastened down below deck). They have offices all over Europe and some on each coast (Long Beach, CA), but they delivered the cars to Tacoma, even though they have no offices there. The problems we had were dead batteries and missing loose items when the cars arrived. It looked like sailors would sit in the cars and turn the interior lights on to read or whatever until the battery went dead, so we learned to pull the fuses for the interior lights when we dropped off the cars. Two cars had their ECUs destroyed when the dock workers tried to jump start the cars with 24 volt fork lifts. When shipping the cars by boat or by plane the gas tank should be close to empty. Lufthansa also has special platforms for shipping cars on 747 cargo planes and will get them to the proper location. You should ship your car with nothing loose inside, even removing your radio face if it is that type. E.H. Harms charges using a formula that makes a 911 fall into the cheapest category (weight and size?) while Lufthansa is by weight. The year we shipped the race car we had to post a bond incase we didn't return the car to the U.S. and didn't pay German duty. They didn't seem to be concerned about the street cars, though we did have to have a carnot for spare tires and wheels and ship the worn out tires back to the U.S. We shipped the spares on a separate pallet and rented a cargo van to haul them from track to track. We needed the spare tires and brake pads due to as many as 10 tracks in two weeks with two drivers per car. Returning was different each time. One year all the cars had to go through emmisions testing in Europe before they could be shipped back. Another they had to be pressure washed underneath so we didn't bring back noxious weeds. A third year we had to sign statements that stated we didn't use unleaded gas or take the cars to eastern Europe. Each year was different. I think the cars needed to be washed before shipping so that proper condition inspection could be made as well. Leeds