You may be so astonished by the news that I bought my Mk3 Commando a whole year ago that you'll need to sit down for a moment! It's true. Think calm thoughts. Yes indeed, last June (June!) I bought this fine Commando Interstate from Flashback Enterprises in the faraway USA, and it has taken only an entire year to get it back on the road. I am a patient chap, fortunately. When a few decades younger I was far less patient and would probably have thrown the entire bike into the canal by now. Age does bring its own rewards, plainly.
The import business – actually getting the bike here – was a story told several issues ago, and although it took longer than I expected, it worked exactly as it was supposed to and the bike appeared in the drive only several months after I'd bought it. The rest of the delay in getting it legally on the road again is all down to me, I'm afraid. Because I decided that rather than wading through DVLA and HMRC bureaucracy I would devote my spare time to actually making the bike work again. Which I did, with a little help from my good friends at Ace Mosickles.
Finally, then, I had a running and mostly functional machine which I could submit for an MoT based on its VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) and then work my way through the registration process. This is nowhere near the first time I have registered bikes, hence my lack of concern. The first machine I imported from the USA was a Matchless G15CSR, a glorious desert sled which I bought from a fine fellow in Chicago who owned several of them. Registering it was really easy. I took the receipt, the Customs receipt and the
