[rocknroll_jeph]

So here is my long story… I hope someone has time to read it all...

But first, let me introduce myself-

I’ve been lurking on this sight for a while and other than Jalopnik I am not registered on any other websites. However, I really liked the sense of community and companionship that I see within the members of the Camaro5 forum so I am joining up with my first official post and the story of how I got to be here. Maybe you will find it interesting, maybe you can’t be bothered to read. Either way, here it is.

So since I was a kid growing up in the 80’s I loved Camaros. I remember my babysitter’s son had a black 3rd gen IROC that I actually got to look at up close. That is my first memory with a real Camaro, but I had tons of Camaros toy cars in various sizes to keep me occupied when he wasn't at that house. Besides, in southern Michigan, Camaros weren't exactly a rare sight.

But then I left the states in the mid 90’s with my family and American cars sort of fell off the radar. We lived in the mountains north of Taipei, Taiwan for a few years so I got used to seeing a lot of tuners running through the hills and wrapping themselves around light posts and trees on my way to and back from school. A few years later we moved to Hong Kong where I saw a lot of high end sports cars and tuners as well. Then in 2000 I moved to Beijing, where there was no car scene to speak of. After 3 years in Beijing, I started riding street/ sport bikes- Yamahas, Hondas and eventually I bought a Ducati. In 2007 I bought my first car, which is still my daily driver: a Hyundai Tiburon… not the best car, but a fun and practical car to own in the city. In 2009, back in the states I picked up a used BMW Z4 to road trip when I am back in Michigan for the summers.

Now I've had the Tib for a while and was looking for something interesting to drive, but it had to be rear wheel drive and only have 2 doors. In Beijing, the car scene is getting better and there are more and more choices of what to drive. However, my wife is very particular on what I am allowed to own. She only allows me to pick a small selection of cars. All Japanese cars are forbidden- no BRZ, 370’s… so sad. Also I wasn't allowed to get another Hyundai… that leaves European and American cars. Ok. There are still quite a few out there in Beijing for me. However, I am just a Kindergarten teacher/ punk rocker-not some millionaire playboy- so I need to get something I can afford. That leaves second hand cars.

Well, around May of ‘13 my wife and I were strolling around the used car lots here in Beijing. We just like to go for fun sometimes, no one hassles us and the vendors are all kind of lumped together with everything from Aston Martins to Ferraris to see scatted among the pos BYDs and VW Passats. On the way out we see a clean BMW Z4, like the one I have in the states but with the hard top. In Beijing the convertible isn't too practical anyway. So we ask about it. It’s not a bad deal, low miles, very clean condition and all the options we want (except it’s an auto, nearly all imports have and automatic transmission- not fun, but not a deal breaker and traffic sucks anyway. I don’t want to ride a clutch when I go anywhere) so we start the paperwork.
In China, nothing is easy.

First, I am only allowed to have one car in my possession, so I have to get rid of my Hyundai. But I really don’t want to. I have put a lot of upgrades into it; I have a connection with my first car and its worth practically nothing anymore. So there. But I really want a new car so we think of options. My father-in-law has a very practical and reliable but old Citroen XM which will have to be mandatorily crushed in about 1 year. So we hastily arrange for him to sell that car so I can put his car’s license on my car, therefore we are able to keep my car and get rid of the car that would we have to have disposed of soon anyway. This all happened very suddenly and we really didn't get a chance to say our goodbyes the Citroen, but we were happy to be adding a slick 3.0l fastback Z4 to our family.

The car lot that we have been dealing with is across town. For someone like me who grew up in rural Michigan, across town is like a 10 minute walk. However, across Beijing is more like a 1 hour drive on a good day. By this time in the process I have gone to that dealer about 3-4 times over the course of a week. I have sold my father-in-law’s car to a stranger from west China, “sold” my car to my father in law and started the paperwork and bank loans for getting my Z4. At this time, I have no car to my name but a non transferable piece of paper that gives me the right to car ownership with an expiration date of November 3, 2013.

So the bank works out well (but another hour drive and time off work) and the loan goes through. The next day we drive back out to the dealership in my old Tib, with a new license plate, registered to my father in law, which was another day of paper work and running around I might add- for it to be registered I had to revert it to stock condition- CAI, big brakes, wheels and tires all had to be changed back to original and additionally I had a traffic ticket I had to pay off as well. And then I start the process of un-registering the Z4, releasing it from dealership and registering it in my name. It all went quite well except for the hassle of everything involved, but at least we were getting somewhere. The last step after getting the car checked out and released into my name was to take my paperwork and the cars paperwork to the foreigner’s traffic police office to get my plate to put on the car, and that is where it all came to a crashing halt.

When I bought my Hyundai, it was before the Olympics were here, before the traffic jams and pollution were making headlines on CNN and life was simpler. At that time I just walked up to the dealership, picked out a car, gave them some cash and drove off in a car. Putting a license on it was just a matter of waiting in line and picking up a plate. They didn't even look at my driver’s license I think. That day I discovered how much changed and how the process wasn't as easy as I though it should be. In retrospect, I should have done my homework first.

Actually, everything that we did was right except that I had overlooked my visa situation. My current visa was only valid for 5 months. I had just visited LA and got a new visa stamp in February and remember the visa officer telling me that because my passport had less than a year left, she could only issue me a 5 month visa. I didn't think anything of it because my plan was to get a new passport over the summer anyway. That memory came rushing back to me when they told me that I need a visa with a stay of 6 months or more in order for me to register a car in China. Because of that one small detail, the whole deal fell through. I got a full refund but my father in laws car was gone, and my tib was still in his name, and I was stuck with a non transferable piece of paper that says I can register a car…

There was nothing to do until school got out in June. Our two families managed with just one car and a bike between us, after all, there was a time when none of us had a car, but we were used to the convince. During the summer, we went back to my old house in Michigan, got a new passport in Detroit. A few weeks later we went to the Chinese consulate in Chicago to get a new shiny visa in my new shiny passport. Things were looking good again! We spent a day in Chicago while the visa was being processed. When we got it back I was happy to see that I had been issued a 2 year visa. But on the second look the duration of each stay is only 90 days… which means that nothing had changed in my situation. I still needed a duration of 180 days or more to get a plate and time was running low. There was nothing more I could do in the states at that time, but we know when you get a visa in China, they will give you a year visa with a year duration… My wife is from Beijing, so that makes it easy for me to get a visa in Beijing, however, we were married in the states, so we needed to get our marriage certificate officially translated and notarized for it to be valid in China. That’s not too hard, just mail it to San Francisco with a addressed and stamped return envelope, paperwork, photocopies, originals and payment. I sent this off on one of the last days of our summer vacation before we returned to Beijing knowing that it would have to be then forwarded again to China. We waited for about 3 weeks then we got the package… everything was there… but nothing had been done. The form of payment I had sent was not accepted. I had sent a check and they only accept money orders. So… I sent it back to the states, had a brother of a friend make out a money order and then he sent it to San Francisco again. This time we waited for a few weeks and the last week of September it arrived! It was all in order! The next day I went to the visa office, submitted all of my paperwork and passport. She stamped approved and sent it down the line. Bad luck strikes in more that threes for me. The next week was vacation and for my type of visa they have a long waiting period, and the office had the whole first week of October off. My one year visa would be ready on October 23rd. 10 days before my car license paperwork expires.

During the October holiday we walked around the used car lot and I didn't see any Z4 Coupes but we saw a nice looking Porsche Cayman S that was in our price range as well as a pair of Camaros. One looked like it had a hard life in Beijing. There were go fast parts stuck to the inside and out and the tires and seats were pretty worn down. The other, only 2,000RMB (or about US$ 330) more was nearly factory fresh, with only 16,000KM (just under 10,000mi). With a close inspection I found that the iPod cable was still wrapped in plastic, the engine bay was clean enough to eat of, I plugged in my computer to the OBD port and found nothing strange and while inspecting the trunk I discovered a happy surprise, a K&N CAI… oh, this is the one I want… still, I had about 3 weeks until I got my passport back. I went back nearly every weekend to just look at it. The Cayman S disappeared, some other Camaros popped up but “mine” was still there. Finally, that Wednesday came. I took the day off work to do the following: pick up my passport down town, back to my local police office branch to get my registration, across town to see if the Camaro was still there- it was- start to process again… We negotiated a price, they had some paperwork to do so my wife and I went to the traffic police to recheck our paperwork was in order then back to the car lot again. After getting home that day I saw that I used half a tank of gas during the day. The price we negotiated to was reasonable for a Camaro in Beijing. They were asking 36,000RMB, with no effort my wife got them to knock 10,000 off the price. We should have asked for more of a discount! So I put the down payment on a Silver 2011 RS Camaro V6 A6. In USD this car costs about US$ 57,500 -which isn't bad when an SS is going for about $100,000- if you can find one. V6 Mustangs about the same at just under $100,000 and GTs… the price is too frightening to even think about. Still, I hope to be fulfilling a lifelong dream to own a muscle car and to keep a bit of ‘Merica with me in my travels and life in China.

Now it is Sunday. I’m at my wife’s parent’s house tucked away in the alleys of Beijing, waiting on a call. Our shared Tiburon is out in the hutong under a dust cover for the weekend. I’ll drive it back to my house for and commute 10min to work the rest of the week. I still have a few days before my tags expire. I have given a down payment, sent my information to the bank and am waiting for the bank loan to go through. However, the place where I bought the car from has never needed a loan before so they have to go through a process to get bank authorization first. When all of that that goes through it should only be a day or two until I can drive my Camaro for the first time! There are no test drives in Beijing sadly. It has been a rough 6 months; I just hope that this wait is worth it. At least I test drove a Camaro in the states and was happy with it. I hope to be sending updates on what it is like to drive on the roads in China. If not, I guess I’ll register on the Tiburon forums and hang out there, cause this is my last chance at getting a “new” car in China.

Jeph

October 27, 2013