会社概要 — About
Including the parts of its history we'd rather not mention. That's the whole idea.
Importing a car from Japan isn't difficult in the way people assume. The auctions are open, the grading is honest, the shipping is routine and the customs process is well-worn. What's difficult is that almost none of it is visible from America, and the industry that grew up in that gap has not covered itself in glory.
The common experience is a flat "all-in" number with no breakdown, a photo set with no inspection sheet, and a company that stops answering the phone somewhere between the wire transfer and the port. We started because two of us had been on the wrong end of exactly that.
So the business is built the opposite way round. You see the untranslated sheet and our translation of it. You see the duty line, the freight line and our fee as separate numbers. You set a bid ceiling we cannot exceed. And if a car we sold you turns out to have a problem, the same person who sold it to you is the person who picks up.
We're a two-country operation. Kenji and his team sit in Nagoya, twenty minutes from USS, and physically attend lanes rather than bidding blind off a screen. That's the part most U.S. importers outsource to a broker they've never met — and it's the part that decides whether you get the good car or the one that photographed well.
The customer side is in Irvine, California, so your calls, invoices and title paperwork are handled inside U.S. business hours by people you can look up.
We don't own a lot. We don't carry inventory we need to shift. That matters more than it sounds: an importer holding a car he paid for has a reason to talk you into it, and we don't have one. Every car we recommend is one we'd buy at that number ourselves.
The crew
Sourcing director — Nagoya
Eleven years buying at USS and TAA, six of them for Japanese dealers. Reads a sheet faster than anyone we've met and is comfortable walking away from a car other people would talk you into.
Co-founder — Irvine, CA
Imported his own R32 in 2016, got most of it wrong, and spent the next four years learning the parts that went wrong. Handles the U.S. side end to end and answers the phone on auction nights.
Logistics & compliance
Ex-freight forwarder. Runs the relationship with our licensed customs broker, tracks every vessel, and knows which state DMVs need what before they ask for it.
Partners
Bidding accounts at USS, TAA, JAA and HAA through our licensed Japanese exporter partner, plus dealer and private consignment channels that never reach a public lane.
All U.S. entries are filed by a licensed customs broker, not by us. Their licence number appears on every entry summary you receive.
RoRo bookings through a Japanese NVOCC on the Nagoya and Yokohama services; container consolidation for cars where it's warranted.
Independent pre-shipment inspection available on any car, carried out by a third party we don't control and don't pay per result.
Enclosed and open carriers nationwide from Long Beach, Tacoma, Baltimore and Jacksonville.
Climate-controlled storage in Southern California for buyers who aren't ready to take delivery, or who are still working through state registration.
Clients
Six weeks, four cars they told me to pass on, and then the right one. The fact they talked me out of three cars is the reason I trusted the fourth.
Marcus D. — Austin, TX — R34 GT-R V-specMy Evo VI got flagged for random inspection at Long Beach and sat there nine days. Sarah called me every single one of them, including the days there was nothing to report.
Priya R. — Seattle, WA — Lancer Evolution VI TMEI'm in California, which everyone warned me about. They told me the honest version on the first call instead of taking a deposit and figuring it out later. It took longer than I wanted. It worked.
Alan W. — Sacramento, CA — Mazda RX-7 Type RS