The story of the GTI-R in Sweden!

The story began in early -91 when the first of a total of 22 cars came to Sweden. They were all white and stripped of all extras, no central-locking, no power-windows, no air-conditioning, no nothing. The reason for that was the sad fact that this wonderful car was never intended to hit the streets in Sweden.

The general idea was that this car was for competition use only, so the main distributor "Nissan Sweden" never bothered to get the emission certificate for this model. All cars were soon sold, to Thomas's knowledge there are 20 cars still in Sweden 19 of them are registered and used as rally cars, that leaves one car. That only car was sold together with another car that was converted for rally use. The buyer thought that there had to be a way to get it out on the street. After a while he realized that it was impossible to register as a road car, so this car was put away in a garage and has been standing there ever since. It is brand new with only 2 km on the meter.

Thomas saw a GTI-R the first time in the summer of -91 at a quite small rally near his parents summer house. When he saw it he knew immediately that he just had to have one of them. He contacted a Nissan dealer only to realize that it was not possible to register this car. So he sadly accepted that he never could buy one. He knew that the car was sold for road use in several other European countries like Germany and England, so when Sweden joined the European Community (EC) he thought that perhaps now he had his chance, but no, Sweden had some special agreement to keep regulation regarding emission certificates, so it didn't help that the car was street legal in other member countries of the EC.

The only possible official way to get a GTI-R out on the street in Sweden is that somebody who have lived abroad and owned this car for at least one year, brings the car back to Sweden. Then you will be granted an exception for emission certificate. The importer then have to own the car for at least one year in Sweden as well. As far as Thomas knows, no GTI-R has been imported in this way to Sweden.

What he did was to ask for an exemption from the emission rules in Sweden for this car to the SEAP (Swedish Environmental Protection Agency). He referred to a paragraph in the emission law saying that if it is a single case and it has little affect on the environment you were supposed to get that exemption. From his point of view this car fitted exactly to that description, it was the only car in the whole country and it had a three way catalytic converter fitted which normally is a non negotiable condition that a car just have to have to be registered here. He sent this to the SEAP in 1994 and got back a cryptic answer were they referred to the standard law saying that to be able to register a car in Sweden it has to have a Swedish emission certificate. They never even mention that little hole in the law saying that if it was a single case and it had little affect on the environment you were supposed to get that exemption. So he appealed their decision and really pointed out the fact that he should be able to use that hole. he got back a second answer telling the same thing as the first one.

The next step was appealing the SEAP decision to a court of law and that was what Thomas did. When he did this almost one year had past since he sent the first apply to the SEAP. After this he heard nothing for a very long time. Finally after almost one more year he called the court and asked what was going on and got the answer that they were waiting for judgments in similar cases. Then another year passed and suddenly he got a letter from the court saying that they had decided to give him the exemption. One week later after almost three years he got the envelope from the SEAP with the official paper that he needed at the registrations. Thomas immediately called the owner of the car and said that he wanted to by the car. One week after that he had the car in his garage and some weeks after that it was registered and ready for street use. Now he was the proud owner of the only street registered GTI-R in Sweden, and it was brand new.

On the 1:st of November 1998 new EC rules made it possible for anyone who wishes to import a GTI-R to Sweden. To his knowlage there are currently three street registered GTI-R's in Sweden including his model. So much for all that time and hard work.

[Ray Williams: in early 1999 Thomas had his pride and joy stolen. He has moved on to an EVO and has asked me to 'adopt' these pages - which I do gladly]