If you’ve ever looked at buying a cool used sports car, maybe a Porsche or a Lambo you’ve probably noticed that you’ve struggled to find a lot of options locally. It’s a fairly common problem, someone is looking to buy an old sports car but there aren’t any available for sale. There were always rumors about the cars being sold to Europe, that there were some German guys in Kuwait who pick up used cars for cheap and then export them to Germany where they get sold. It sounded like a myth but a quick look at the Instagram account of AlSarraf Motors, a used car dealer, and you’ll see a lot of his cars do get sold abroad, and mainly to Germany. According to the caption they posted on the picture above, the white Porsche was their 88th Porsche exported. That’s an insane number for one brand, at one used car dealer in a small market like Kuwait.
Last year there was a 2009 Porsche 911 for sale in the blogs classified section for 4,500KD (pictured above), and a few weeks ago I got the following email from the person who bought it:
Hello, I bought your car from Jaap in the Netherlands. I am very happy with it. I have a couple of questions.
1 do you still have the service history and instruction books
2 do you still have 1 key? I received the car with 1 key
Thank you for replying to My message.
So I emailed the guy who originally had the car listed the car for sale and supposedly car sellers in Europe search for cars on popular websites in Kuwait, and then use a local guy to purchase and export the cars where they end up selling it for double or quadruple the amount in Europe. This has caused a problem locally because previously you could buy a used Porsche, Lambo, Ferrari, Maserati, etc.. for a reasonable price, but now because so many are getting exported, it’s causing the prices of the cars to inflate locally due to less being available for sale.
It doesn’t seem like a big deal unless you’re into cars and are looking to pick up an affordable used sports car and realize there aren’t any available. Not sure how this issue can be solved, maybe an export tax? Maybe it isn’t even a problem that needs solving since the cars will most probably have a better life in Europe anyway. It’s an interesting situation.
30 replies on “All the Cool Used Cars are being Exported”
Used Cars prices went up due to car production. Porsche and Mercedes aren’t producing much cars because some parts used in the cars come from China and due to OVID, they aren’t available. Tax is really high on cars here in Germany which explains why it’s being sold at higher price.
That’s a different issue.
You can find some really nice cars here in Kuwait for prices that’s considered too cheap in other western countries.
You will be surprised on how cheap used cars (AMGs, Porsche etc) can be found here.
Did you read my post?
Tax probably has something to do with it. I used to lease a car super cheap in France cuz once it hit a certain KM they would be able to export to other parts without tax.
I attributed the rise in export to a lot of new Bitcoin / Stock millionaires in Germany/ NL. The trend started in mid 2020 when the supply crunch wasn’t as pronounced. I was looking at Ferrari Californias and I kick myself cuz I could have picked one up, driven it for the winter then sold it at a price recovering the maintenance + true cost!
*tire
Seeing how abused and most of the time badly maintained cars here are, good luck to buyers. :-/
It’s a problem not worth solving imo
If the seller finds a better deal abroad, export it.
Especially given that most of these cars being sold are fun sport cars, not daily drivers. If it was normal cars, the kind that most people rely on for transportation, getting sold en masse that’d be different
The used car market here is weird and generally lazy.. Some do put effort in but because most don’t that partly why prices are lower here compared to Europe and why they come here to buy used sports cars especially.
Very few people properly maintain their cars even if under warranty they will not service it on time or at some random garage. Used car ads mostly are terrible, bad photos usually at night or just one photo at a terrible angle, little information given, just ‘check gear, engine, chassis’ and a bafflingly wide ranging definition of ‘clean car’. Until there is a complete mindset change and appreciation given (not likely) then the values here will be lower and people from Europe will come and take them. Good for them.
If in the long term it means we see less sports cars more than 5-10 years old on the road and people who look after their cars getting more money and value locally from the few like minded here then great, keep exporting the rest to Germany, at least they deserve such cars on their roads more than Kuwait. Chinese cars seem to be taking over here anyway.
I remember when I went to Germany and an airport cab picked me up. It was an E class Mercedes from the early 90s car had like 800k mileage and looked like it had just come out of the dealership. In the US it’s kinda like Kuwait where they change cars all the time once the lease is up. I feel that in Europe people buy cars and keep them for much longer.
Isnt Western Europe against gas guzzling trucks and sports cars? Dont old cars guzzle more gas than newer ones? Why are they buying cars from the middle east, just because they are comparatively cheaper? Hypocritical much?
This is a classic arbitrage situation – because used sports cars sell for a lot higher abroad, there’s an opportunity to profit from buying cars cheap here and selling them for higher elsewhere. I know a few locals and not just foreigners who’ve made a business out buying used cars here as soon as they hit the market and arrange to sell them in Japan, Europe or US. The problem is not that there should be an export tax, but that a lot of sellers here simply underprice their cars. Over time this difference in prices between local and foreign markets should start to close since sellers here will start to realize that their cars could sell for a lot higher and will start jacking up their ask prices, which explains why used sports cars here are getting more expensive. While putting on an export tax would be good for local car buyers since they’d have less competition from foreign buyers, it would be unfair for local sellers since they’d be forced to sell at a lower price than they could fetch from foreigners, so the tax would actually hurt local car dealerships, which is not ideal.
Oh, this is interesting. Guess, we won’t put our cars for sale here. Need to look more into this thing. Tnx for the article 😅.
No one has said anything about the steering wheel being on the wrong side? I wonder how they overcome that in Europe.
That’s only in the UK. The rest of Europe are LHD like us.
Yesterday i bought a used american car here in kuwait.
The same car sells for +5,000kd more in the USA.
I got lucky.
What did you get??
a camaro
What model year?
2019
Now export and sell it for 5k more in the US.
Bidnissman 🤑
It’s funny you mention this because I came across Al Sarraf’s Instagram just recently too & noticed how cars from there get exported to Germany.
I stumbled upon another account on Instagram, doesn’t seem like a business but an individual. A Lebanese man exporting cars to Lebanon. From what I’ve noticed, he ends up exporting mostly Maseratis.
I was curious to why recently so many luxury cars were being sent to Lebanon in the middle of the biggest financial crisis. Turns out the car tax there hasn’t been adjusted to inflation so right now the tax on imported cars is super low and so some people are taking advantage of this.
Alot of people here are interested in brand new cars. Cars that are exported tend to be for sale for a long time with no buyers locally.
Older cars usually suffer in summer. And cars here, specifically sport cars, with more than 100,000km are seen as “expired”.
Garages here are either bad, or very expensive. So trully clean non-beat up old sport cars are rare.
I know a guy whom been buying old classic cars and old muscle cars ( mainly American cars ) and ship them to Germany
He buys and fix them later on he ships them to Germany
I know for sure he shipped more than 50 cars in past two years
When i had a little chat with him about it .. he said each car has at least a profit of 2500 kd
Can you email me his contact info. ? I know a guy with old cars that might interest him.
the main reason why he is exporting the cars is price difference between kuwait and europe.
for example 2015 ferrari 458 italia average price in kuwait between 35,000-45,000kd depends on cleanness, services history in dealership, options.
but it europe 2011 ferrari 458 italia lowest price is 50,000-60,000kd and goes up.
his profit with selling to europe is 50% more than selling it in kuwait. my guess also the other car brands too.
btw different subject:
just my opinion about the required name & email is pointless, since most will put anything fake. i dont see it as a requirement but as an option, but thats just my opinion.
I don’t think you’re including the import tax which I think is like 20%. So the 35,000KD is more like 42,000. Plus add shipping, registration etc it’s probably closer to 45.
Hi Mark,
Thanks for sharing all the valuable content over here. It seems u are pretty knowledgeable regarding the automotive industry in Kuwait. Can I please get in touch with u for a small question?
Cheers!