MITI Raises Minimum Age Requirement For Classic Car AP To 35 Years

The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) has announced that effective 1-July 2018, the minimum age requirement for classic cars imported into the country using Classic Car AP will be raised from the current 25 years to 35 years. The minimum age for vintage vehicles remains at 50 years.

Currently, dealers and private individuals are allowed to import of classic and vintage vehicles by applying for a Classic and Vintage Vehicles Import License Approved Permit (AP) from MITI.

All other conditions remain the same. As before, the vehicle’s age is determined based on the vehicle’s manufacturing year, replica and rebuilt vehicles are prohibited.

Vehicles must be certified as a classic or a vintage by a recognised certification body from the exporting or manufacturing country. All applications must include copies of Certificate of Origin or a Certificate of Registration. A certified translated version is required if the language used in the original documents is other than Bahasa Malaysia or English. The vehicles must be registered with JPJ and are non-transferrable within five years.

The move effectively means that all your favourite JDM legends from the ‘90s will go even further out of reach, driving up prices of well-maintained, original condition units that remain in the country. Cars like the R32 Nissan Skyline GT-R, Toyota Supra Mk IV or even a Honda NSX or S2000, can no longer be imported into the country come 1-July 2018, at least not for several more years.

The latest models that can be allowed into the country will have to be manufactured in 1983, which rules out even an E30 BMW M3, which was made in 1985.

No reasons were given for the revision and the new 35-year old age limit is inconsistent with standards used in the European Union and even USA – both of which define classic cars as original condition vehicles aged between 25 to 50 years old.

The conditions for Open APs, the ones used for reconditioned cars, remain the same – not less than 1 year old and not more than 5 years old. However unlike Classic and Vintage Car AP, Open AP calculates the vehicle’s age based on the model’s first date of registration at its country of origin, not the particular unit’s year of registration/manufacture.