A Day In The Life Of A Car Exporter In Japan: Bidding on JDM Cars At The Auctions!

In the first part of this video we meet up with Jeff, a car

exporter

in Japan with a passion for Japanese sports

cars

, we take him on a day in his

life

at USS Tokyo, the world's largest car auction, to see the

cars

that he planned to bid on for his overseas clients if you haven't seen the first part yet be sure to check it out but in this video we'll continue our day in the auction building to actually bid on the car that jeff identified as a potential candidate for export and sale, let's see if he can win the auction, I'm elbow, I came to Japan as an English teacher, then I moved near Tokyo to pursue my passions, I became a filmmaker because I love cars, Japanese culture and a good story, I am lucky to live the jdm dream, so my videos are about my motoring

life

in Japan, where I go to car meets and shop, track and race, build and review cars, and shoot vlogs, short films, and documentaries about Japan's automotive culture and history.

Join me and my friends on our adventures and find out what it's really like in the land of the Ryzen sun, so hop on in, buckle up, and enjoy the ride! you have to bid on something in a few minutes but lunch break ends at three we have to go and they will have lunch here yes it is complex there are many different types of people doing different types of businesses within this industry we have the

japan

ese curry. and this is uh my personal recommendation it literally says for foreigners yeah that's racist i don't appreciate that i think i actually see it as pretty considerate it's really considerate i guess it's like halal awesome when jeff says lunch fast it wasn't No kidding it was basically over before I even had my food those are the numbers on there so those are the cars currently up for auction so if you know the number you want to bid on you can see it as it approaches. don't miss it, we have to see that in the meantime, what are you eating Japanese curry? yeah right now i'm just contacting the client he only has a few minutes before we make an offer so he's just looking at some of the photos in the video and deciding if he wants to try and make an offer so obviously there's a lot of helping the customer understand that there is realistic price and unrealistic price yeah yeah I think you know our customers are good at it like you know we often talk about what is market value we look at cars We see what they do. because every week we're looking at it with the customer so they can see and yeah I think at the end of the day for all of us who want to buy a car eventually you just have to be in line with what the market says so even though a lot of times we were like wow thats a little pricey or whoa those prices have really gone up yeah thats true but those are the prices so we head to the room we have to make an offer in about a minute now here comes the the coolest part of jeff's job which is the part i've been waiting for all day which is actually

bidding

on all the thousands of cars that go through the

auctions

you'll see how it happens in real life yeah well , we're about to bid so cars are next jeff is now competing against hundreds of other bidders to try and win a car.

There is a small button below the terminal that can be pressed to place a bid and each time someone presses it the bid increases. fire system, which means that cars put up for auction can be won in a matter of seconds. This allows thousands of cars to pass through the system daily. It's going to be alright ok you want it I don't know why it was so cheap bro that was scary that's over congratulations to your client dude he's a lucky guy he's a lucky guy he's crazy oh You'll be glad when you find out. that price means if your bid was higher than the ask price you get it for the ask price or you get it for your bid oh you get it for the actual ask price yeah I mean obviously we have to work out how the rates are and stuff, for example, let's say your max bid was three million, but the car actually sold for 2.2. when we ask a customer to accept market value that's so we know none of us are wasting our time so accept market value let's go in now hopefully it's cheaper but at least we can say hey , I am willing to pay what this car is worth and if we are lucky we will be lucky as your friend.

I'm not saying I was surprised by the prices many cars especially the jdm cars we all know and love are looking at both ends of the spectrum super premium and rare examples of cars are outrageously priced but not rare spec versions of the same Lower cars and grades like 3.5 or even 4 can be extremely cheap, this means dealers and

exporter

s can buy at very low prices at

auctions

, allowing them to make a nice profit. Check out this super sick nvp envy challenge s207 that just sold for. more than the original list price um here we go for more than that so you find really cool cars here huh dude it's so much fun watching crazy cars go by all the time ultimate flex 207 do you think this car was sold by a private sale or dealership uh , I mean it has to be through a dealer so yeah who knows in your opinion there are a lot of great deals to be found by going through auctions absolutely yeah hugely usually so yeah , I mean there is everything there are cars that beat the price of their cars that are just average priced and then if you're really looking there are good deals every week it just depends how flexible you are if you're looking for a car , it has to be a Certain color it has to be a certain year It has to be a certain grade It has to have a certain mileage then there is a much smaller chance that you can get a really good deal but if you are flexible on things like condition, color , mileage and just looking for a deal you can find one, what kind of person recommends using auctions as their way of finding their next dream or highly desirable car? a good question i mean i think if you want to save money you sure buy at auctions especially if you don't mind doing simple things yourself like literally cleaning the car do an oil change things like that because you're going to Finding the cars are sometimes not in bad condition, but they are not polished for a beautiful sale, are they?

This is like negotiating between dealerships so that they know that they are going to do an oil change, they are going to do a basic service on the car. they should vacuum it up and get it nice and clean wax the paint and then sell it to the public so if you buy from Goona you are buying a car that already has the basic stuff done or at least I would assume and hope the dealer is doing the basic stuff by you, but if you don't mind doing it yourself or even doing it yourself, then you can definitely save a lot of money by buying from auctions that you find the best. cars at auctions what is that?

That's a toyota mega cruiser so it's like a

japan

ese army used hummer here ok so what are we going to do next? on a few things on the way out and then we'll stop at the car we won and just take some more photos and videos of the client and just for fun and then we'll be done what are we going to do with the car we'll leave it here yeah we'll leave it here and we'll get a logistics company to bring it to our warehouse and, um, it'll go to the US as a mid 1998 model, actually an early production model, so it'll be US legal.

Sooner than many other R34s, but that still won't be for a year and a half, so it'll be in a warehouse here in Japan or in the US, here in our warehouse, yes, we'll stock it. buyers and sellers today basically if you sell three or more cars here in the auction you get to choose one of these two prizes so you can have this stinky fish or you can have a delicious cheesecake the choice is yours so, why are there wheels? just displayed there, yes they sell wheels, tires, car batteries, whatever you need for that car you just bought, you can fix it while it's still here at the auction and it just makes the whole selling process a breeze fluid I guess.

I don't know, I never actually bought any of that, but you can and do drive tape recorders. Apparently, there's like Star Wars and a lot of vendors here that are trying to sell things to the auto industry, yeah, so there's a lot. of stuff and these guys are talking hey we'll let you know we'll polish your headlights or fix your bumper like the siding scratches stuff like that so whatever you need to own a car you know the most salable condition so we'll to go look at the car now yeah let's get it right so one thing i noticed is that there is a very large proportion of non-japanese sellers and buyers here yeah yeah yeah I don't know what the actual percentage is.

It feels like it's about 60 Japanese and a lot of guys from all sorts of different countries, um, yeah I mean it's a lot of countries, I think there's a lot of guys from Pakistan in particular, um, African nations too, yeah, Middle East, a lot of guys over there um not that many types of english speaking countries actually yeah you stand out i mean you're the only one i've seen here today so yeah you want to walk or you want to take the s204 here five supras a couple of 'em so here it is yeah nice car man nice car nice deal and now we'll leave it here because you took some pictures for your client and we're done yeah we're done let's get out of here yeah yeah that's what i was saying earlier like we're going to lose power you know it's a shame cause you've come all this way and there's like you could do 10 more videos today this really is endless seriously yeah , endless oh and that concludes our trip to uss tokyo auctions now it's time for the hour and a half ride back to daikokuto where i first met jeff earlier in the day ok finally we came back. it took a long time it's your days always so you know it might be like if you leave the auction around rush hour naturally it's extremely unpleasant so yeah I mean sometimes it takes me like three hours to get home it's pretty bad right and we went back to where we started that's how it was today yes it's a good day good day you know it's always a good day when you can buy a car i think we saw some interesting things i had a good time how do you like being in this industry and working as a car exporter i love it because i'm obviously a fan i've loved these cars for a long time since i was in high school i played original gran turismo on playstation one so for me being around these cars inspecting them getting to touch them starting the engine experiencing a little bit of them is like It was a dream to me I'm a kid in a candy store so what's my current job what do I do help people live the dream man I'm connecting with people like our customers it's just me they're exactly like me yeah I wasn't living in Japan so it's amazing for me to be able to talk to them and help them experience a little bit of Japan.

I dream that guys like you and me can live living here and experience all things non-Japan and it's great to be able to connect that. with them in whatever country they are where they can have a little piece of Japan and experience something that wasn't easy for them before so I'm making dreams come true darling what kind of advice do you have for people living in the abroad at the moment, but would you love to somehow work in Japan and participate? does the auto industry somehow get involved in the auto industry i mean it's a tough question i think it's a much bigger question than we have time to answer at the moment there are so many steps involved to put yourself in a position on the that you can even come to Japan when you're talking about visas and how you're going to support yourself and make money before you can position yourself to go into the auto industry yeah I think the first step is for people to understand that you made it happen so that it's not like that outside the realm of possibility for other people to make it happen yeah i think um i think that sounds a lot like the advice you've given people on your channel before it's just you know wow to Japan, find a way to come as an English teacher. or whatever you have to do to get here if you want to start your dream life in Japan just start a life in Japan and then you can shape the dream as you go and learn Japanese that's very important that's big , Yeah. you are going to have to learn japanese especially if you want to be an exporter we are going to end this video here we will definitely be good friends with jeff we always hang out so you will definitely see him in more videos but for me it was very interesting going to the auctions and I'm going back just to look for my next car actually you know I have a few cars on my mind and I'm definitely going to go there and dig through the inventory looking for thecar perfect perfect and uh jeff will help me and he helped you guys too so to that end i set up a google form in the description box so if you're really looking to buy a car talk real like this is the time .

A lot these cars keep going up in price and if you're on the fence and want to buy one of these JDM cards, you're probably wondering where you should buy it. I can highly recommend jeff he is a great guy and just fill out that form. in the description box if you are seriously interested please don't waste your time but if you are seriously interested you can make it happen. He did it for many of our friends, like today. We were able to find the car that the customer wanted and it's being shipped so this is a real deal and we really believe if you're looking for a car we can help you thanks for enjoying this episode be sure to subscribe and leave a comment and give me like the video and all that usual stuff any last words man i think you said it all man it was a good day it was a great day i'm exhausted and you've got a lot of work to do it's just the fun part this is the fun part now you gotta go home and keep track do all the paperwork and all that stuff it's important to find someone you can trust that you can actually do it from source to sourcing in your driveway so dude thanks a lot bro it's fun we'll see you guys in the next episode and we'll leave some comments about what kind of things you'd like to see in the next video, so relax, take care and see you. the next you