Ok, so after we had purchased the car, we needed to get her back home to Blighty!
When I imported my Corvette a couple of years ago, I used a company called Seabridge International. I contacted Michael Albi again and asked him to provide a quote for me. The car needed to be shipped from Long Beach, California to Southampton here in the UK. At the same time I contacted some UK based shipping agents and the actual shipping line themselves. As it transpired, Seabridge were the same price as the shipping line and a lot cheaper than most of the UK agents.
First we had to arrange to get the car to the port of Long Beach. This was a distance of around 120 miles from the seller's home. At first we tried some local Californian firms but they seemed reluctant to provide a quote or couldn't sort her out in our time frame. In the end we went down the unusual route of using another web site devoted to shipping items, www.uship.com This site is similar in a way to Ebay but instead of selling things, you post what you want shipped and people bid on it. Up to you what bid you take.
Needless to say in the grand scheme of things, had this worked it would have been great. Unfortunately, the guy that we had arranged to haul the car for us was taken ill and admitted into hospital. Back to square one! Eventually the Corvette Forum came up trumps again as another local member knew of a guy who could pick up the car and get it to the port in our time frame. This sounds a lot easier than it actually was. It was touch and go if the car would be accepted on to its booked vessel as it was late being delivered. Frantic phone calls at 02.00 to California eventually sorted this out.
The cost of shipping the old girl from Long Beach worked out at $1035. This, at the time when the £ was worth almost US$2.00 seemed like a great deal.
The car left port on July 13th 2007, Friday the 13th..eek! She arrived at Southampton on August 16th 2007.