Wouldn't it be cool if you could just go to a local dealership to buy a JDM hero car? Well, if you live in or around the Naples area in south Florida, that is now a reality. Craft Sports, the Nissan Skyline and GT-R specialty store and dealer that started in Gunma, Japan, recently opened their first overseas dealership just north of the Naples Airport, and it looks chock full of Skyline and a few other non-Nissan dream cars that we never got in the US. Whoa.
Presumably taking advantage of the Sunshine State's relaxed importation and road laws, Craft Sports in Naples appears to have gone live at the end of 2020 and has an impressive collection of R32, R33, and, yes, even R34 Skyline GT-R and non-GT-R up for sale. Their inventory also seems to include a few Silvia and then the rando Toyota, Honda, and Mazda (last time we checked, they had an NA1 NSX, FD3S RX-7 Type R, and Mk4 Supra RZ available).
Founded in 1995, Craft Sports has grown to become the largest GT-R specialty shop in Japan. Most of their vehicle stock is purchased directly from their respective owners in Japan, and one of the perks of purchasing from Craft Sports is that they will source genuine factory and NISMO parts for your car should you desire. If you're a fan of Super GT racing and the Craft Sports name sounds kinda familiar, it's because they also happen to be a team partner of NISMO's GT500 program.
Photo 20/20
| GT-R Importers Craft Sports JDM Opens Dealership in Florida
To be fair, this is not like your normal car dealership in a handful of respects. For one, they don't offer financing, nor do they accept deposits; you pretty much need to have the entire nut on hand when you're ready to pull the trigger. Additionally, they don't ship cars anywhere (that responsibility is on the customer) and are not in the business of hunting down specific cars in Japan. They only import cars that exceed the US's 25-year legal limit in age, and if you're interested in one of their cars in stock in Japan that hasn't yet reached that legal threshold, you can still buy it and Craft Sports will house it for a monthly charge until it does become legal.
Craft Sports opening in America could be interpreted as an escalation of sorts. We have seen homegrown vehicle importing operations proliferate in the last couple decades with the likes of Phase9 and Driver Motorsports and several others (a previous version of this story incorrectly lumped Toprank in there, but like CS Toprank are part of a Japanese grown business), and we know the market for J cars - both collector and otherwise - is on fire right now, which would suggest there is some opportunity afoot, both for sellers and buyers. Now we have what is essentially a legit JDM vehicle dealership in the States, which would seem to bring a plethora of dream cars closer to reality for many. We hope you've been saving up for this.
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