Tempting, but we've got this cruel thing called Vehicle Registration Tax, which is a tax on top of a tax. Take the price of the car, add your regular import tax, and now take a percentage of that based on emissons, which for a town car, would be right out of the ballpark by EU standards, so 35% of the total on top of everything. Once I'd lubed up with vaseline and paid that, there would still be an annual road tax of around $2100 a year, because it's got a "hooj" engine over 3 litres. I should point out that this craziness is Ireland specific rather than reflective of the EU. The powers that be still view internal combustion with suspicion as some sort of foreign debauchery.

However... this can all be neatly sidestepped by buying a "Vintage" vehicle, which is anything over 30 years old, which means I only pay a smaller fixed VRT amount and about 60 dollars a year road tax. So it means I need to look at pre-84 stuff, putting me right in the middle of malaise era decadance, because the cool 60s stuff is probably out of budget, or just wait til 2021 to take up on your offer, by which time the Eunos will probably be finally the way I want it.

This totally resonates with me, I'm based in Ireland and am getting closer to putting together my semi-attainable dream fleet, that I can divide into, "needs", "wants", and "now you're just being silly". Needs is currently covered by a Honda Accord. Wants is covered by a Eunos Roadster 1.8 B2 Limited (Miata), no better way to have fun once you get out onto our huge network of small twisty rural roads. So far so predictable... but I aspire to the silly section, which would totally be along the lines of the car featured, a full size US wagon or saloon, doesn't even need to be a "performance" oriented model as the roads don't really allow much space for messing about, there's no proper drag strips here (nearest is on the next island in Englands Santa Pod), and it'd be lost at a track day. I'm not even sure I have anywhere to keep it as even the Eunos already normally lives in a friends garage rather than the terrible parking in the poorly laid out tiger era housing/apartment development where I live, and my wife would hate it. (She totally gets the Eunos, but old Wagons are where she draws a blank). Still...I want one...

Meanwhile in Texas, someone is probably plotting how he can get an early 00s three cylinder Polo TDI into country... :D

A Zetec unit from a first gen Focus/Mondeo is an increasingly common swap in UK/Ireland and not too hard to do apparently.