ValiantHardtop
Well-Known Member
Hey guys,
Just planning my Epic US Holiday for next year, and was hoping you guys could help a confused foreigner out with some info.
Basically, my wife and I are planning pick up a car in Miami and spend about a month driving through the south, finishing up in Houston. I'll put a post up in a little while asking for suggestions about places to visit along the way, places to avoid etc, but before then I was hoping for some advice about a car.
After checking out the cost of car hire (particularly given the amount of miles we plan on driving, one-way), it appears the best way to do this is to buy a car for the drive.
We can go one of two ways - either buy a sweet classic car, then ship it back home to Australia at the end of the trip, or buy a cheap car to get us through the drive and sell it/give it away at the end. Probably the cheapish modern car (Crown Vic most likely, maybe a cheap pickup truck) will be the way to go - I'm a good roadside mechanic but doing thousands of miles in a newly-purchased 40 year old car might be stretching the friendship.
Either way, we'll need to sort out the car-ownership legalities before we set off. What I was hoping someone could tell me is what is necessary to get on the road in Florida.
In Australia, when you buy a car, you need to have a safety inspection done by a licenced mechanic, then pay your state road tax and you're done. I was hoping someone could confirm what the process over there is?
Obviously you need to buy a car with clean title (we don't do "title" over here), but what other hoops do they make you jump through? Has any other non-US citizen had any experience with buying/registering/licencing a car in the states (Canadians on this forum maybe?).
Any advice with this would be appreciated - Have been dreaming about this trip forever, can't wait to put the plan in to action.
Edit - I've done some googling, and the Florida govt website is worse than useless, so anything you can tell me is fantastic
Thanks so much
Nick
Just planning my Epic US Holiday for next year, and was hoping you guys could help a confused foreigner out with some info.
Basically, my wife and I are planning pick up a car in Miami and spend about a month driving through the south, finishing up in Houston. I'll put a post up in a little while asking for suggestions about places to visit along the way, places to avoid etc, but before then I was hoping for some advice about a car.
After checking out the cost of car hire (particularly given the amount of miles we plan on driving, one-way), it appears the best way to do this is to buy a car for the drive.
We can go one of two ways - either buy a sweet classic car, then ship it back home to Australia at the end of the trip, or buy a cheap car to get us through the drive and sell it/give it away at the end. Probably the cheapish modern car (Crown Vic most likely, maybe a cheap pickup truck) will be the way to go - I'm a good roadside mechanic but doing thousands of miles in a newly-purchased 40 year old car might be stretching the friendship.
Either way, we'll need to sort out the car-ownership legalities before we set off. What I was hoping someone could tell me is what is necessary to get on the road in Florida.
In Australia, when you buy a car, you need to have a safety inspection done by a licenced mechanic, then pay your state road tax and you're done. I was hoping someone could confirm what the process over there is?
Obviously you need to buy a car with clean title (we don't do "title" over here), but what other hoops do they make you jump through? Has any other non-US citizen had any experience with buying/registering/licencing a car in the states (Canadians on this forum maybe?).
Any advice with this would be appreciated - Have been dreaming about this trip forever, can't wait to put the plan in to action.
Edit - I've done some googling, and the Florida govt website is worse than useless, so anything you can tell me is fantastic
Thanks so much
Nick