Idle wondering - what used cars get exported from the US?

Weird question, I know, but I was thinking a bit about cars that used to be everywhere, but now you don't see much of. I think there was an article on Jalopnik about it recently. One thing that didn't get covered was what gets exported from the country.

I know Hummer H2s tend to get shipped to Central and South America at a pretty high rate, and I've heard rumors that used Corollas tend to get shipped everywhere, but there are so many of those that I don't think it's noticeable. I've heard that higher trim line models of cars sold in other countries tend to be popular, too. Anyone in the used car sales/exporting business that knows what's popular, and where it ends up? Just curious, not planning on starting my own business.

Pickup trucks.

Hearses.

I met a dealer in the Midwest who exported at least one hearse a month to some Scandinavian county. Something to do with how trucks are taxed higher, but cars are not. So the idea was to get the absolute biggest car and use it for a delivery vehicle. Naturally a hearse is just a gigantic station wagon. Some weird tax loophole exploit.

I sold an at the time 6 year old Lexus LX470 that was bound for Russia. As they don't sell them there if you have the fancy version of the Land Cruiser you are apparently a big baller.

Toyota pickups- when I was selling mine 90% of the potential buyers were planning to make a road train with two other vehicles and Harbor Freight tow bars to bring it to Central or South America. Made for some interesting conversations, but in the end it sold to a local guy.

A friend sold a similar truck to a buyer in South Africa.

I'd forgotten about that truck. I wonder how many other 3/4 ton and 1 ton pickups get exported, since I gather they are predominately sold new in the US.

Oh yeah, I do have one personal addition to this, but it's an old one. In the late nineties, the company I worked for shipped an early nineties Buick Century to their office in China, packed up with a bunch of electronics labeled as "parts". I later went over there, and they were using this somewhat beaten light blue Buick as a company car, in a city full of VWs, occasional Audis, and a small mix of other cars. At the time, I did not realize what Buick's reputation in China was.

I sold a 94 Mercedes E300d once that was shipped to South America somewhere.

A lot of old British sports cars get shipped back "home" after living in the Southwest, for obvious reasons.

A local car dealership used to ship Big American Cars to Australia quite regularly. And I got some requests for my Cadillac from Sweden, I believe.

There was a period when new Miatas were being shipped worldwide from Canada. A Mazda rep told me that approximately half of the Canadian 1997 models (I think) went straight to the ports. I know there are more Canadian 1992 yellow Miatas in a particular German club than in any Canadian club I've seen.

From what I see locally: hearses, ambulances, and "neo-classics."

Edit: Also, it seems that a good chunk of all the diplomats here are driving some kind of modern Jeep Wrangler variant. You cannot get parts for these locally. There is one mechanic who specializes in Jeeps. One diplomat has a recent Cherokee with the little slit headlights. These are probably new though, they're minty recent models.

The guys who bought my C4 Corvette shipped it to Sweden. This kind of makes sense as they are dirt cheap over here and may have been a bit rare in Europe.

If you check out Retro Rides, you will see that a lot of the old American Tin of the 40s, 50s and 60s is desirable and brought over.

Rust-free Brit expat tin is also in demand.

South America tends to be more pragmatic and looks for trucks and buses for their local needs.

Canada will import Honda S2000 and some luxury vehicles. If said Luxury vehicle was made in the USA then even more bonus points.

Just realized, I don't see a ton of first generation Ford Fusions around here anymore, at least nowhere near as many as there used to be. Is it just attrition, or does someone, somewhere else in the world (or other region of the US) love those things? Still see a lot of first gen Mazda 6 sedans, so it's not like they all just got junked due to being a bad platform, is it?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ wrote: Toyota pickups- when I was selling mine 90% of the potential buyers were planning to make a road train with two other vehicles and Harbor Freight tow bars to bring it to Central or South America.

This.

As an old "minitrucker" I'm on a few Facebook boards and people are constantly posting up pictures of old 80's/90's Toyotas linked up headed south of the border.

Guys are reporting seeing them all the way up in Oregon being bought and towed south.

about 10 yearsago or so I sold a nice '87 Firebird that got shipped to France of all places...

In highschool I used to work for this car detailing shop. I once had to clean 3 Escalades that were bought and being shipped to Iceland. The salesman who brought them to us told me that he sold big American luxury suv's to Scandinavian countries and Russia, medium luxury cuv/suv's and jeeps to West Africa (Ghana mostly), and sometimes muscle cars to Europe, Russia, and Japan.

My friend had his boat for sale and most of the potential buyers were from Australia. He sold it to someone down under.

Here in S. FL diesels get shipped to Haiti, trucks particularly. I sold a 71 Z-28 Camaro to a guy sight unseen with no price haggling who didn't really care anything about it other than it was a real Z-28 with original engine. He had it picked up and sent straight to port, said it along with a bunch of other muscle cars were being shipped to oil producing country. Didn't say which one.

I see a lot of Siennas, Camrys etc that are being sent overseas.

I see a lot of rebuilt/salvage title stuff going overseas.